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THE UNSEEN 



BY 

JAMES E. GRAY, M.D. 



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' ' I had rather be an amanuensis of the Infinite God, as 
it is my privilege literally to be, than a slave to the formu- 
lated rules of any rhetorician, or to the opinions of any 
critic." 

RALPH WALDO TRINE. 



-RC4k2. 
.Qrl 



Entered according to Act of the Parliament of Canada, 

in the year 1907, by 

JAMES E. GRAY 

at the Department of Agriculture. 



Received from 
Copyright Offlcd. 

.,'07 



INTRODUCTION. 

As everyone knows who has followed the 
news of the day, there have frequently been 
reports of abuse of patients in the hospitals for 
the insane. From time to time what seemed to 
be undeniable facts have been furnished, and yet 
little has been done to remedy these abuses. My 
first object, therefore, in presenting the facts 
related in this book is to let the people know what 
I experienced, saw and heard and to show how the 
insane are -treated, and believe measures will be 
adopted to correct the abuses to which the mentally 
afflicted are subjected. 

But a higher object than merely to have the 
insane cared for kindly by their keepers is to show 
that in the State Hospital at present there is 
absolutely no scientific treatment for the mind, 
and not even physical ailments are properly looked 
after by the physicians; and to demonstrate the 
fact that with proper nursing and attention from 
physicians who understand the objective and 
subjective mind, there is treatment that can be 
applied for the restoration of the mental and 
nervous systems. 

From my experience I believe it is possible, 
from a proper study of the mind, to scientifically 
demonstrate the existence of God and a Future 
Life. Lombroso, Alienist Professor of Psychiatry 
in the University of Turin, Italy, recently startled 



4 
Europe by a brilliant illustrated article in "La 
Lettura," declaring: 

"In collaboration with Dr. Pallidino, I have 
inquired exhaustively into the whole subject of 
spiritualistic phenomena. As a result of our 
researches, I am bound to admit the conviction 
that the phenomena are of collosal importance, 
and that it is the plain duty of science to direct 
attention to them without delay." 

It is only possible to skim over the ground 
and refer to a few instances that are recorded 
entirely from memory. There is every oppor- 
tunity to prove what I have written and abundance 
of material in every hospital for the insane to 
confirm the statements I have made. If afforded 
an opportunity, it will be possible to produce a 
work of greater value to Science and Religion. 

It may seem to some that I have been actuated 
by a spirit of revenge, but to any fair-minded 
person, it will be evident that what I relate is 
written with a desire to be true to God and human- 
ity, and it seems superfluous to say there is not a 
particle of animosity toward anyone connected 
with the hospital in which I was placed. 

I was a Morphia habit, did not want to die 
taking the drug, lost my grip on myself, and now 
I am free. Bad as it was, I believe I was taken 
to the best government asylum on earth, and yet, 
without my own knowledge and the help received 
from on high, all the treatment given me was 
simply sufficient to keep me alive and make me 
an insane pauper for the remainder of my days. 

A hospital for the insane ought to be a most 
interesting place to a doctor. A surgeon and 



5 

physician of world-wide fame recently made to 
his medical associates the following declaration: 
" For generations past the most important influence 
that plays upon nutrition, the life principle itself, 
has remained an unconsidered element in the 
medical profession, and the almost exclusive drift 
of its studies and remedial paraphernalia has been 
confined to the action of matter over mind. This 
has seriously interfered with the evolutionary 
tendencies of the doctors themselves, and con- 
sequently the psychic factor in professional life 
is still in the rudimentary or comparatively un- 
developed state. But the light of the twentieth 
century has dawned, and so the march of mankind 
in general is taken in the direction of the hidden 
forces of nature. Doctors are now compelled to 
join the ranks of students in psychology and 
follow their patrons into the broader field of mental 
therapeutics. There is no time for lingering, no 
time for skepticism or doubt or hesitation. He 
who lingers is lost, for the entire race is enlisted 
in the movement." 



HABIT. 



Referring to the Nightingale pledge in his 
address to the graduating class of nurses from 
Victoria Hospital, London, the Rev. Dr. Ross said: 

"The reference which your pledge makes to 
the use of drugs is perhaps not altogether unneces- 
sary Every nervous system which is subject to 
long continued and severe strains, such as doctors 



6 
and nurses have to endure, seems instinctively to 
crave some stimulant. It desires some tonic 
short cut to rebuild at once its shattered energies 
and recover its sense of comfort and power. And 
especially is this the case when Nature's great 
nerve tonic, the soft dew of kindly sleep, refuses 
to weigh our eyelids down. In such times of 
nervous depression the knowledge that temporary 
relief was within their reach often proved a temp- 
tation to many, too strong to be resisted. But I 
need not describe the result which too often 
follows, the loss of freedom, the desperate slavery, 
the depleted manhood and womanhood, the loss 
of usefulness, the terrible remorse, the shortened 
life. But the clearest knowledge of the results 
has often been entirely unavailing to stem the tide 
of temptation. That which most firmly anchors 
the soul in its good resolution is the conviction 
that the use of such drugs, except in special and 
well defined cases, is morally wrong, is a sin against 
God." 

From eight years of age I suffered with a pain 
which started on the right side at what is now 
known as McBurney's point and radiated over my 
abdomen. In my boyhood days it was regarded 
as a stomachache, although it came on after 
getting my feet wet or catching cold. It was 
always relieved by a dose of castor oil taken before 
breakfast. The pain always started at the same 
point; no physician was ever called and if one 
had been called he would not have known what the 
trouble was since appendicitis was not diagnosed 
at that time, and if a correct diagnosis had been 
made, better medicine than a dose of castor oil 



7 
could not be given, for the most successful practi- 
tioners to-day prescribe it. 

Just after graduation, while I was interne 
of the hospital for nervous and mental diseases, 
a severe attack came on and the consultant 
administered an injection of morphia. We were 
tapering off a morphia habit at the time and I 
had a dread of morphia and opium in all its forms. 
The habitual use of codeine, heroin, dionin, and 
the other alkaloids of opium is overcome with 
little less difficulty than morphia. 

The pain of appendicitis unnerves a man to 
such an extent that it is hard to wait for the relief 
that oil affords. Once I had to endure it until 
unconscious. A surgeon was consulted but would 
not operate. Cocaine was new, and I read an 
article in a Medical Journal which stated that it 
would relieve pain and it was not possible to form 
a habit of taking it. I tried it and relieved the 
pain, but soon found I could not control its use and 
was obliged to take something to quiet me. This 
threw me into the morphia habit. I have never 
known a person to become addicted to the use of 
a drug without there being a cause for it. 

The similarity between the mental and 
nervous condition of those suffering from the 
excessive use of liquor, the condition of those 
suffering from the absolute removal of their 
accustomed drug and the excitement 
of acute mania is very marked. The objective 
mind is lost. Patients who were committed on 
account of the excessive use of liquor told me that 
for a time they knew they had been drinking 
and knew the snakes were only imaginery, but 



8 
that afterward they did not know and the snakes 
to them were real. The electrical condition of 
these various patients was similar. They all 
thought they were receiving currents of electricity. 
The treatment an alcoholic patient or drug 
habit received in the hospital was no worse than 
a patient committed on account of his mental 
condition, brought on by his attention night and 
day to a sick wife, or the loss of property due to 
the man's effort to assist his brother. In fact 
the man with the habit received greater attention, 
probably because his condition was better under- 
stood. It seems only fair that a government 
which reaps so much revenue from the liquor 
traffic ought in fairness to generously treat those 
unable to control their appetites. The truth is, 
however, that in the alcoholic wards of general 
hospitals and in the jails, as well as in the State 
Hospital, men are strapped down on a bed to wear 
themselves out and die or get well as best they can. 
For alcoholism scopolomine will overcome all 
suffering and enable the patient to regain his 
natural condition without torture. In the treat- 
ment of a cocaine habit, it is necessary to cut it off 
completely. In the case of a morphia habit it is 
certain that the tapering off method is the best. 
If a patient has vitality he will right up rapidly, 
and by gradually reducing the dose will not lose 
his natural mind nor control of himself. A man 
with low vitality will require more time to recuper- 
ate. Eight grains of morphia is as much as the 
system will assimilate during twenty-four hours 
and if more than that is taken it will be elimin- 
ated. It is much better to administer the drug 



9 
by the mouth. The late Dr. Lett, who gave 
much attention to the cure of drug habits, could 
usually taper a patient off in six weeks and re- 
duced the dose down to the one-two-hundred-and- 
fiftieth of a grain. There is a cure for the morphia 
a nd other habits, and if a man will place himself 
under restraint and proper treatment, he is 
certain to recover. 

" There is no thing we cannot overcome ; 

Say not th)' evil instinct is inherited, 
Or that some trait inborn makes thy whole life forlorn, 

And calls down punishment that is not merited. 

" Back of thy parents and grandparents lies 
The Great Eternal Will ! That too is thine 

Inheritance, — strong, beautiful, divine, 
Sure lever of success for one who tries." 

In my own case, I do not consider that I 
received any rational treatment. For four or five 
weeks I was given some kind of medicine and a 
couple of hot baths, but after that I was simply 
left to myself without care or treatment. I did 
not know I needed anything and thought as I was 
free from the drug they would let me out as soon 
as my wife came for me. Four months after 
admission they allowed me to go down town with 
her and not being able to sleep, I became excited 
in church and was taken back to the hospital. I 
discovered in this way that it was easy to lose 
control of myself. I found, too, that I was not 
looked upon by the doctors as merely a habit, but 
as an insane man. Since the attendants would 
report me quiet as if I had slept when I did not 
sleep; since nobody — doctors or attendants — 
understood anything about the mind, I began the 



10 
systematic care of myself, reported my condition 
to the doctor, took my own hot baths, began 
massage and systematic exercise, and begged for 
a little medicine to sleep, until eventually all 
obstacles were overcome and I was allowed on the 
open ward, and eventually discharged. 



THE HOSPITAL. 

The peculiar construction of the old hospital 
buildings enabled me to see and know in part what 
was transpiring on every ward. These buildings 
were comparatively new, a fire which occurred 
about ten years previous having destroyed the old 
structures. The hospital was built with two 
wings having halls leading to a central part in 
which were located kitchens and dining-rooms, 
with the men's dining-room on the third floor. 
The wings were two stories high and the whole 
consisted of four wards, nine and eleven in one 
wing and ten and twelve in the other. When we 
went to meals the patients came up from twelve 
into the hall of ward ten. After passing through 
the entrance to ward nine hall, there was a door 
which let the patients up from ward eleven, and 
after ascending a stairway patients from wards 
ten, eleven and twelve were joined by those of 
ward nine, and all passed through another hall and 
ascended another stairway leading to the dining- 
room. There were two dormitories extending like 
another pair of wings from wards nine and eleven, 
in which fifty or more patients slept, packed in 



11 

like sardines, while out from eleven and twelve 
a single dormitory extended in which sixty or 
more patients slept, the beds crowded together 
in a similar manner. In ward ten, there were 
six or eight single rooms off the hall leading to the 
dormitory, and three or four single rooms off the 
sitting-room. The latter were formerly occupied 
by attendants. In ward nine there were rooms 
similarly situated, but some of those off the hall 
leading to the dormitory had two or more beds in 
them. 

To a visitor the place looked beautiful inside 
and out, and it was pleasing to look at the highly 
polished floors, the rugs, the easy rockers, the 
birds singing in their cages, the flowers from the 
greenhouse, the marble basins and tile floors in the 
toilet-rooms, the vine-covered walls, the well-kept 
grassy lawns with their beautiful beds of flowers, 
the robins singing in the maples and the orioles 
in the apple trees. The song, " Under the Old 
Apple Tree" was just becoming popular and the 
voice of an attendant would make that song ring 
through the ward. The birds, grass, trees, were all 
there literally before me as in the song, but so far 
as I knew, so far as the doctors knew, so far as my 
relatives knew, so far as anyone on earth could 
tell me, never again would I be free, never again 
sit in the shade of the old apple tree, never again 
enjoy the green grass or the songs of the robin 
and oriole except through those iron bars, or in 
the presence of a foul-mouthed keeper. Such a 
place may do for a man who is given the best room 
in the place, who knows enough to treat himself, 
but how terrible for a sick man who does not 



12 
know, with no doctor to ask him a question, no 
nurse to look after him and report his condition, 
no one who understands. It is beautiful to look 
upon, but think of treating a nervous patient in 
that crowded, noisy, foul-aired place, under the 
harshest kind of discipline. To expect such a 
person to recover is expecting the impossible. 
On two occasions the patients of ward nine were 
doubled up with the patients of ward ten during 
the afternoon, and the animal magnetism or foul 
air, I am unable to say which, was very distressing. 

I had the assurance of the angel that I pos- 
sessed the grit to go through with it and the promise 
of God that He would take care of me and I kept 
to work. I understood the Swedish movement 
of massage and knew it was good for nervous 
diseases and I massaged myself, exercised on the 
strong iron bars .that were before the windows, 
persisted in the hot baths which I found were still 
more effective when I used soap and a scrubbing 
brush such as they cleaned the floor with, just 
begged the little medicine I needed to obtain sleep 
from the doctor and fruit from my friends. 

What can strangers see, toted through those 
well-kept wards, the very discipline required to 
make them such meaning torture to many patients ? 
What can relatives know from the few minutes 
spent on a visit? What can the Grand Jury 
discover of what transpires, taken through by 
some one in authority? On one occasion the 
Grand Jury was being taken through, and I 
noticed that one juryman was a member of our 
church and of our Masonic Order. I went up to 
him, gave him the grip and said to him: "There 



13 
is something the matter in this place." He replied: 
"We are looking after it," and passed on and out. 
I wonder how or where he thinks he will find it. 

The new hospital was constructed on the 
factory plan. The reception ward was built on 
better lines than that of the old hospital or the 
other portions of the new, although the way in 
which attendants compelled patients to remain 
in their own sections took away the benefit of the 
improved plan from many. There were wired 
balconies which were healthful. Everything in 
the new hospital was built and furnished on a 
cheaper basis. As an example, the hair brushes 
in the old hospital were made of bristles and 
worth about a dollar, but those in the new hospital 
could be bought for five cents. The bath-room 
floors were cement without tile and cracked so 
that the water from the upper floors leaked down 
on the lower. The windows were locked open 
and you were obliged to take the fresh air and 
rain whether you liked it or not. I gave the open 
window a fair trial for a year and I know I can 
sleep better with a closed window. Sleep without 
fresh air is more refreshing and restorative than 
fresh air without sleep. The hot water was turned 
on with a key which the patients were not allowed 
to have and no attendant would bother turning 
on the hot water for you even once a day when 
you wished to wash. There was no polishing of 
the floors. A polisher is an iron-headed brush, 
weighing twenty-five or thirty pounds, with a long 
handle, which the patients are required to push 
back and forth every morning for an hour or two 
after the floors have been waxed. To a man 



14 
getting well in such a place appearances do not 
count for much. To be on the open ward, where 
one can have a little liberty, get out in the air, 
walk on the ground, sit under the shade of a tree 
or tramp through the snow are privileges that 
only a man whose nervous system has been 
impaired, and who has lived under restraint for 
several months, is able to appreciate. 

The hospital has a fine farm, but it is certain 
that the patients benefit little from what is grown. 
The fresh eggs, chickens, ducks, celery, green 
corn, tomatoes, green peas, berries and other 
fruits are certainly not produced for the patients. 



THE EXAMINER. 

The Examiner in Lunacy visited the hospital 
three times during my stay. The first time, early 
in December, he, the assistant superintendent, and 
the physician in charge occupied a room off ward 
nine and several patients were taken in to them 
and examined, one at a time. I was among the 
number, as this was the Examiner's first visit after 
my admission. They allowed me to say what I 
wished. I told them I knew about the hyoscine, 
or hyoscyamine, treatment and how Dr. Hamilton 
wrote that he could take a man out of the morphia 
habit in a couple of days but that I had been 
afraid to try it. It was my impression at that 
time that I had received such treatment, but as I 
look back I know better. I was given hyoscine, 
not as treatment for my trouble, but because I 



15 
was excited and noisy, just the same as they would 
give it to any excited and noisy patient. 

I was also asked some questions. The doctor 
in charge asked me to extend my hand, spread 
out my fingers and put out my tongue. The 
Examiner then asked the doctor how my reflexes 
were, and, after answering that they had not been 
examined, he tapped me below the knees. It is 
now evident from this examination, and also from 
the fact that the assistant superintendent told my 
wife that I would lapse into a chronic condition 
and would die of paresis in a couple of years, that 
they regarded me as a paretic and therefore 
incurable. 

The Examiner wanted to know if there was 
electricity, and I said I thought there was and 
took the black rubber comb which I had in my 
pocket and ran it through my hair. I told them 
that I had been fooling with the electric light at 
home, wondering if I possessed miraculous power. 
He wanted to know if I possessed such power and 
I told him I did not. I thought I possessed 
telepathic power and acute perspicuity before 
entering the hospital. They did not ask anything 
about telepathy, but the Examiner asked me to 
explain perspicuity, which I attempted to do. 

There were no comments made regarding my 
condition before me but the doctor in charge told 
me afterwards that he was sorry he disagreed with 
the other medical men. 

I know, from the fact that I had great diffi- 
culty in writing a letter the day of the Examiner's 
visit, that I was very nervous. It was a very 
short course of treatment, only about nine weeks, 



16 
for me to expect to go home at that time but I 
was doing well. I had not wanted to write a 
letter previously, everything was becoming natural, 
and if I could have had a quiet place to sleep, 
without the light and noise outside and inside my 
room, and a little treatment, I feel quite sure I 
would have gone on to recovery without a relapse. 
I know it is important that patients be 
examined by a man of character and ability such 
as the Examiner, in order that men and women 
be not confined illegally, but it would please me 
to know to what purpose, so far as treatment is 
concerned, all this examining is put. Suppose I 
did have delusions about electricity, suppose I 
did think I had miraculous power, suppose I did 
possess telepathic power and could catch the 
thoughts of others, or a message from on high, 
but could not prove it, suppose I did think I was 
endowed with acute perspicuity and could read 
a man's face as readily as I can this page, what 
then? A man has but one opportunity to be 
brought before the Examiner for a personal 
examination. Let the Examiner answer, what 
has ever been done in a State Hospital to disabuse 
a man's mind of a delusion. I can prove to him 
that nothing is ever done. On the contrary, 
everything is done both by doctors and attendants 
to create and continue delusions. Suppose a man 
was suffering with paresis, what is ever done in a 
State Hospital to afford him relief from the awful 
suffering that loss of sleep and noise especially 
causes? Or if he is simply in a nervous state, 
what is done to prevent him lapsing into a chronic 
condition? I can prove to any fair-minded man 



17 
that everything is done to increase the nervousness, 
and to hinder nature in her upbuilding and restor- 
ing work. At the time of the Examiner's visit, 
I was not receiving medicine, hot baths, nor 
anything in the way of treatment. When I sp,oke 
to the doctor in charge about my ailments he 
merely whined that I had an awful lot of ailments 
and that he had so many patients to attend to, 
he could not give so much attention to one man, 
although I know he had time to see private 
patients in the city. 

I, with the rest of those not engaged in some 
kind of work, was obliged to sit day after day 
on the ward without an outing oftener than once 
or twice a week, even during the most pleasant 
summer weather. We were obliged to breathe 
the foul air from the lungs of over a hundred 
patients, some with tuberculosis and others with 
all sorts of diseases, and to endure the racket and 
noise, the loud talk of certain patients after coming 
in from work; and then the nights. I know 
from my after experiences that it would not have 
been any use to explain the true condition of 
affairs to anyone connected with the hospital, 
but if I could have explained to the Examiner, 
at that first visit, that there was a drunken night 
supervisor who played cards and smoked with 
the night attendant just outside my door nearly 
the whole night through and every little while 
tramping with their heavy shoes into the office to 
help themselves out of a bottle, for besides hearing 
the sound of the bottle I was told by an attendant' 
that a bottle of whiskey was always kept at hand ; 
if I could have told that my door was to be left 



18 
open by the doctor's orders with the light in the 
sitting-room burning all night; if I could have 
described how the upper part of my window was 
always open, the screen preventing me from 
closing it, and the curtain rolled ever so high 
continually flapping; if I felt that I dared to tell 
how the night attendant would come into my 
room at four or five o'clock and go through the 
wardrobe looking for something which is beyond 
my power to guess, as there was only an attendant's 
white coat there besides my own clothes; if I 
could have described the early morning with the 
yelling for patients to do the work and the slam- 
ming of the hall doors, and how, sleep or no sleep. 
I was snarled at and ordered to get up, my door 
locked and then obliged to live through another 
day without a quiet spot in which one could spend 
a single hour to rest; I repeat, if I could have 
explained the situation to the Examiner, he might 
have improved the conditions ; but I was mortally 
afraid of the doctor in charge, night supervisor 
and attendants who were so harsh with me, 
Eventually I became excited, my ear puffed, and 
I was taken back to my old room in ward ten. 

When the Examiner came through the ward 
on his second visit I was still feeling the effects of 
the awful hypodermic which the night supervisor 
said he would give me and lay me up for six weeks 
and which the doctor did give me. I jumped out 
of bed and spoke to him and the doctor in charge 
remarked to him that he made a diagnosis of my 

case as . I said that was not so, that 

I was a case of morphinomania. The Examiner 
remarked that my diagnosis was a little more 



19 
like it. The doctor asked me to tell the Examiner 
about attending the French Church. I did so 
and he took me by the hand and said he was 
pleased to meet me. I told him that I had been 
in the service for some years at Blackwell's Island 
and King's Park. He asked who the superin- 
tendents of these Hospitals were when I was 
there. I told him and he said he had met both 
these gentlemen recently. They then walked 
away and examined other patients. I made 
remarks whenever the physician in charge would 
describe a patient's condition, but no attempt 
was made to prevent me, nor was I asked to return 
to my room. I would have been pleased to have 
had the doctor, in the presence of the assistant 
superintendent and the Examiner, treat me as he 
did others when alone. He would have snarled 
out to the attendant: "Take him away. I cannot 
be bothered in this manner," and the attendant 
would have taken me away and .locked me up. 

The Examiner's third visit was made in 
August. I had worked my way out and was in 
the open ward. As we went to dinner the same 
three doctors sat about the table of the inside 
ward of the new building, examining patients 
recently admitted, but I did not speak to them. 
The following day being Sunday, I was sitting at 
evening twilight, near the Pavilion of Highland 
Park, enjoying the beauties of the valley below, 
when a carriage drove up behind me and one 
gentleman addressing the other said: "This is 
the Valley of the Genessee," and then correcting 
himself, said: "No, I believe it is the Irondequoit 
Valley." Many times as I sat there I had won- 



20 
dered to myself which it was, and turning around 
I remarked that I had just been wondering. 
The gentlemen were the superintendent and 
Examiner. They spoke to me and I told the 
Examiner I was going home the next day. He 
said he was pleased to see me looking so much 
better. 

The duties of the Examiner in Lunacy, as far 
as I could discover, were simply to see and examine 
patients after their admission. He could not be 
more thorough and painstaking. I would never 
have seen him with the exception of the first time 
but for insinuating myself. He treated me very 
kindly, and I could have told him and the assistant 
superintendent everything in my mind, even at 
his first visit, but the assistant physician in charge 
was always so harsh with me I was afraid to talk 
at that time. It would be interesting to know if 
the Examiner in Lunacy ever found a patient he 
considered unnecessarily committed, and if he did, 
what was done about it. If he has not found such 
a patient, I would like to ask what he discovered 
the matter with Mr. M. 



THE INSPECTOR. 

I was told there was such an official visited 
the hospital, but never had the pleasure of seeing 
him. I saw some patients being taken from ward 
nine to twelve, and was told that the Inspector 
was there. 



21 
THE COMMISSIONER. 

A Commissioner visited the hospital on one 
occasion, and inquired about the size of the sitting- 
room. The superintendent had the plans of the 
building with him, and gave him the dimensions. 



THE SUPERINTENDENT. 

The superintendent was introduced to me on 
the morning of my admission, as he stood in the 
archway between his office and the office into 
which I was taken. I merely had a glimpse of him 
as everything is rushed through with such lightning 
rapidity. I remembered him from that glimpse, 
however. The next time I saw him was when he 
called in my room. It is a pleasure to recall that 
visit. Although he did not speak to me or make 
an examination of my case in any way, he was 
the first person to come into my room and act and 
look natural. It was during the first two weeks 
I was in the hospital, and my friends and the 
attendants all tell me they thought I was going to 
die ; so that while some who entered my room had 
a pallor come over them and others a peculiar look 
of sympathy, I suppose the superintendent had 
had so much experience looking at just such 
creatures that he sat down beside my bed in a 
perfectly natural manner. He remarked, in an 
inquiring tone, to the day supervisor who accom- 
panied him: "These beds came from the peni- 



22 

tentiary?" meaning the set of beds, one of which I 
was occupying. Then he added that it would be 
well to have blocks placed under the ends of the 
iron posts from which the castors had been broken. 
After making these two remarks he went out. For 
a long time I really believed I had been favored 
by a visit from the supeiintendent, but when I 
recall the fact that only one other patient had been 
looked at by him, and he a Catholic who had had 
the last sacrament administered to him before 
being transferred to the infirmary, it is clear to 
me now that what I regarded as a personal visit 
was merely a look at one who was supposed to be 
dying, and I was not to have a pastor's visit or a 
call from the Protestant chaplain either. But 
Mr. R. and I were favored, since patients die who 
never receive so much as a look from the super- 
intendent. With several medical men on the 
staff, it was a strange sight indeed to see men die 
in the most awful agony, and only receive attention 
from the youngest and least experienced physician 
on that staff, and sometimes without any medical 
or spiritual attention at all. 

The only opportunity offered me to speak to 
the superintendent, the only time he made any 
kind of a personal examination into my case, was 
at the staff -meeting, and as we did not have staff- 
meetings in similar hospitals where I served, I 
did not understand the nature of such a meeting 
and was not prepared. If I had known I would be 
allowed to ask the superintendent for what I 
wanted I would have made a note of some things, 
especially to be allowed in the fresh air out of 
doors. 



23 

While I was never given another opportunity 
of talking to the superintendent, I saw him a few 
times on the wards and went up and spoke to him. 
I met him in the amusement hall during < the 
"Fair," and asked him when he intended to allow 
me to go home. He appeared very much rattled 
and answered, apparently to put me off, that they 
would have a staff -meeting to consider my case, 
but he did have this meeting although it was weeks 
after the promise was made. One Sunday after- 
noon I saw him passing through ward eleven, 
accompanied by his wife, and I asked him to have 
me transferred to that quiet ward. He told me 
to ask the first assistant physician. I also told 
him that the mosquitoes were biting me. He 
replied that it was too bad, and rushed out of the 
ward. He did not give me an opportunity to 
explain that they were keeping me awake at night. 
Screens for the whole hospital were stored away, 
and the windows and doors of the offices of the 
superintendent and others were well protected, 
but in this as in everything else the patients were 
not to be considered. 

The superintendent was not rude to patients, 
but did not seem to understand what should be 
done for them. Three times I called to him out 
of the window as he was walking or driving past. 
He would lift his hat and stop and listen until he 
heard what I had to say, but I am not aware that 
anything I said produced the least result. 

At the graduation of the nurses, he made the 
remark that he hoped to make the State Hospital 
the equal of the best private sanitarium. It does 
not seem to me that any man owning a private 



24 
hospital would leave the work entirely to assistants. 
His visits to ward ten did not average more than 
one a month during the nine months I was on that 
ward, and three of these were made at the request 
of his assistants. He was usually present in the 
amusement hall when outsiders were admitted 
to the entertainments. He was with the com- 
missioner of lunacy, and came through with the 
Grand Jury. It was evident that he liked the 
public to think he was working. 

The one great cause for all abuse and ignorance 
of the true state of affairs lies in the fact that the 
doctors do not converse with the patients and 
utterly ignore their statements when they do 
speak. It is most distasteful to be obliged to 
insinuate one's self upon the superintendent and 
doctors, but you are never given an opportunity 
to speak to them unless you do. That the super- 
intendent needs to have some means of finding 
out the facts regarding the doctor's treatment of 
the patients is as important as that he know how 
the attendants treat the patients. A mean, lying, 
brutal doctor can be meaner and more brutal and 
has a worse influence than any attendant. It was 
simply impossible for the superintendent to obtain 
information at first hand. I have heard the 
whistle blow and one of the attendants answer it. 
When the other attendants inquired: "What's 
up?" the answer was "Old man's in eleven," 
which meant that the superintendent was visiting 
ward eleven, and if everything was not all right in 
ward ten they had better be ready for a call from 
him. That was not very probable as I afterward 
discovered. 



Personally I always liked the superintendent. 
Whether he was versed in the principles and 
practice of psychiatrics I am unable to judge. 
He certainly never gave any demonstration of his 
knowledge in my presence. 



THE ASSISTANT SUPERINTENDENT. 

The assistant superintendent was introduced 
to me when I entered the hospital by the attendant 
who came for me. He was standing against the 
wall in his office. My first look at him impressed 
me favorably. He had the appearance of a 
Christian gentleman, but his Christianity did not 
extend to the patients. 

It is not possible for me to discover how a 
patient would be benefitted by telling him his 
ailments. In talking to me he had no regard for 
the truth. Whenever I spoke of my teeth to the 
head attendant of hall ten, he always referred to 
the assistant superintendent as the one who would 
look after them. One day as he passed through 
the ward, I spoke to him and told him I was 
suffering with a tooth. He said he was going 
downstairs for a few minutes and would be back 
and would look after it. He did not come back, 
and it was many days before I saw him again. 
He never looked after the tooth. He sometimes 
examined new patients in the office of the ward 
and took the doctor's place when he was absent. 
On one occasion he was making the rounds for 
him, and the attendant on the ward told me I 



26 
must tackle him if I wanted anything. I waited 
until he had finished with the patient he was 
examining, and then "tackled" him as the attend- 
ant directed me to do. I explained to him that 
I had not slept the previous night, and that it was 
tough going without sleep, and told him I would 
like a powder. He said he would send me some- 
thing, but he did not and told me afterwards that 
he forgot all about it. 

When I first entered the hospital, several 
friends in the city came to see me, but were not 
permitted to do so. The doctors told them my 
wife had left instructions that they were not to 
see me. My wife never left any such instructions. 
When I did not have anyone to see me for one and 
two months at a time, I told the assistant super- 
intendent how lonesome and homesick I was, but 
he made no offer to have a friend call. At length 
I wrote my wife to write one of the physicians in 
the city. We had gone to college together, had 
been friends for many years, and as he owned an 
automobile I thought he might be pleased to make 
me a friendly call. My wife wrote to him, and a 
few days after the night supervisor told me he 
would give me a hypodermic that would lay me 
out for six weeks and the attending physician did 
give it to me. My friend the physician from the 
city called. He must have received the impres- 
sion that he was wanted to call professionally, 
judging from what transpired afterward. The 
assistant superintendent brought him to the ward 
and remained with him. My friend seated himself 
beside the bed in which I was lying and asked me 
if I had written my wife to ask him to call. I said 



27 

I had. He then wanted to know how I was getting 

along, and I told him first-rate but that I had a 

tooth'' which was cutting my tongue. Saying 

good-bye he went out — not another word was 

spoken. After going home he wrote to my wife. 

A copy of his letter follows: 

Office of Dr 

April 16th, 1905. 
My Dear : 



Your letter of the 12th came to hand on Saturday, and 
to-day I went up to the hospital and visited the doctor. 
He recognized me as soon as I entered the ward from his 
bedroom door. He was in bed when I went in. The 

attending physician informs me that Dr. has had 

attacks of extreme excitability lately, even when I called 
he was quite upset about something. He seems to labor 
under various delusions. The poor man looks so different 
from what I have been accustomed to see him, so active 
and intelligent He seems to have failed physically, 
although they tell me he eats well. 

As I remained with him I felt very helpless while 
listening to his remarks about his grievances, which are 
all imaginary as you well know. He has the very best of 
care there, as it seems to me they all get. I sincerely 
hope that he will eventually recover, but it will certainly 
take a long time. 

Providing he improves a little and the weather gets 
what we call seasonable, if he could get out of doors and 
enjoy fresh air, he would be more cheerful at least. 

I hope sincerely that you will see the time yet that 
he is again in his right mind and serve you as he has tried 
to do heretofore. It seems too bad that a man of such 
capabilities should not be able to fulfil his mission in this 
world. 

Mrs. and I both extend to you our sincere 

sympathy in your affliction and hope with you for the 
best. Very truly, 

From the conversation of attendants it was 
evident that the assistant superintendent had 



28 
supervision over the locating of attendants on the 
various wards, etc., but as to the care of patients 
or treatment for them, I failed to discover wherein 
he took the slightest interest. It would surely 
give such a man a correct idea of the position of a 
patient to lock him in the ward for a month, 
compel him to live under the conditions and let 
him see the true state of affairs. He would 
occasionally come to the entrance of the ward and 
peek in. One day I spoke to him and he wanted 
to know why I had toilet paper in my pocket. I 
explained to him that there was no toilet paper on 
our side of the house. He then asked the attend- 
ant if that was so, and he corroborated my state- 
ment. There was no holder for toilet paper and 
no attempt to supply a holder or to furnish paper 
of any kind regularly during all the months of my 
stay. Once in a while a roll was laid on the 
window-sill, but some patient would place it in the 
urinal and wet it through before it could be used. 
Sometimes patients would use rags or heavy paper. 
The plumbing was not modern. A hole an inch 
and a half or two inches in diameter led to the 
wastepipe. The water supply was automatic, 
and it was a daily occurrence to have the pipe stop 
up and flood the floor. I told the assistant super- 
intendent that a lady supervisor from Willard, in 
describing conditions at that hospital, said that the 
doctors did not want to know the facts about the 
true condition of affairs, and it was perfectly 
evident that they did not. What interest has 
such a doctor in the patient? He has no reputa- 
tion to make or sustain. He draws his salary 
and, while we failed to receive his attention, I 



29 

know from personal knowledge that he was making 
visits to his own private patients in the city. 
!j^ It would be much better that there were no 
such doctors making the rounds, and then the 
patients would not think they were going to receive 
treatment, and the friends would understand 
that nothing was being done, and would be able 
to employ a physician who would do something. 

The assistant superintendent never made a 
personal examination of my case, yet he was the 
one constantly giving out information regarding 
my condition. It was he who told my wife and 
brother that I would probably live ten or twelve 
days, and if I survived this period, would lapse 
into a chronic condition and die in two years. 
After this he was present at the examination 
made by the Examiner in Lunacy, but he neither 
came near me nor asked a question. It was 
seldom that I tackled him after finding it useless 
to do so. He was always so affable. I remarked 
to him a few weeks after entering the hospital 
that I did not believe the doctor in charge would 
ever trust me, and he replied that he would trust 
me. This was in reference to obtaining a parole 
and the little privileges other patients were 
allowed. But, although he was a superior officer 
and ought to be able to overrule on the patient's 
behalf and secure justice for him, his good opinion 
of me availed nothing. 

On one occasion a mutual friend of ours called 
to see me. Not long afterwards my wife came to 
town and visited me. She called on this friend's 
sister who remarked: "The doctor is not getting 
along well." My wife seemed surprised, and said 



30 

she considered I was doing fine. The lady re- 
marked that her sister Hattie had been to see me 
and the assistant superintendent told her I was 
not getting along well at all. At that time I was 
on full parole and walked with this lady and her 
husband as far as the limit of the grounds. 



THE ASSISTANT PHYSICIAN. 

To understand a State Hospital it is necessary 
to understand the position of the assistant phy- 
sician. As the assistant physician did the work 
in the State Hospital where I was a patient much 
as I had done it myself, I will describe the work 
required of me. First, as to education: All the 
instruction on the treatment of the insane I 
received in college was four or five lectures given 
by the general superintendent of the New York 
Hospital, who brought over a few chronic cases 
that certainly did not enable a student to under- 
stand anything about the mind. I recollect but 
two, Johnny, who was called the horse, and a 
kleptomaniac. We were not told why the one 
thought himself a horse or why the other took 
things that were not his or of use to him after 
taking them. The graduating class was taken 
in sections to the hospital once or twice and shown 
through the wards. I served a year in a hospital 
for nervous and mental diseases, but there were 
few cases of mental trouble there and those only 
mild ones. 



31 
In the New York City Hospital they were 
filling up the staff and dividing it into seniors and 
juniors. I was given a position without salary 
and made a senior at first, but soon the staff was 
filled and I was made a junior and was given service 
on the infirmary wards with the second senior. 
We were kept busy with physical ailments and 
gave no attention to mental conditions. After a 
time I was advanced to first junior and was on the 
reception and convalescent wards. This com- 
pleted my education and training, so far as learning 
how patients were cared for by others, and I never 
saw anyone ever attempt to treat the mind. I 
was then put back on a senior service and will say 
no man ought ever to possess the authority and 
power I possessed. I never saw the general 
superintendent but twice, although his cottage 
was within a hundred yards and in sight from the 
window of my room. Once he invited the staff 
to his cottage to drink claret punch, and another 
time I saw him on the boat which we both were 
taking to reach the city. The only occasions the 
superintendent was on the wards with me was once 
to examine a consumptive patient I wished to 
transfer to the infirmary ward, and again on the 
infirmary ward when an operation for a gangrenous 
limb was being performed; twice in four years. 
He allowed me to have all restraint transferred to 
the drug-room to be ordered when needed by the 
doctor. He allowed the rule of the promotion of 
attendants on account of length of service to be 
dropped, and placed attendants, whom I knew to 
be competent, at the heads of wards. It was not 
possible to have the attendants, who had been 



32 

there for years, do things differently to the way 
they had been accustomed to do them. When I 
was on the reception ward, although the straps 
and straight jackets and other means of restraint 
had been transferred to the drug-room, the chairs 
were still bolted to the floor and the head attendant, 
who had been there seventeen years would tie 
the patients to these chairs. I did not feel that I 
knew enough about the work to say positively 
that restraint was not necessary, although I knew 
it had been abolished years before in the London, 
Ontario, Asylum. I asked the attendant in 
charge to call me at any hour, my room being but 
two flights of steps from the reception ward in the 
rotunda, to let me see for myself just why patients 
had to be restrained, but I was never called. The 
superintendent always allowed me to discharge 
patients, whether recovered or not, to the care of 
their friends or relatives requesting it, after I had 
told them the little I knew about the patient's 
condition. In this way it was possible to keep 
about a hundred patients out all the time. 

For a time we were obliged to look after our 
service night and day as the night medical officer 
died, but before long we had to serve as night, as 
well as day, medical officer in our turn. As night 
medical officer I controlled the whole institution 
with its sixteen hundred patients. The super- 
intendent or assistant superintendent was never 
seen at night. They did not wish to be disturbed 
and we just depended on our own judgment. I 
simply did what I thought was best in every 
emergency, but I always tried to do what was 
right for the patient. I was several times called 



33 

down for what the other assistants thought was 
interfering with their work, but I simply took the 
matter to the superintendent, who always sustained 
me. There was only one syringe, with an old rusty 
needle with a big bore, which was used by the 
fourteen members of the staff. There was the 
poorest kind of remedies in the drug-room and 
nothing up-to-date. No two clocks in the place 
recorded the same time and half of them would 
not run at all. The temperature varied in the 
cold weather from 90 degrees Fahrenheit in the 
halls to 54 degrees in the pavilions. I spent 
the weary hours of the long night watches making 
out reports that you may feel sure were interesting 
to the other members of the staff and the super- 
intendent. As a result we got new syringes, one 
for each man, new thermometers and new drugs. 
When we served as day medical officer we were 
obliged to remain in the staff office all day and 
look after everything there, making out passes to 
the wards for visitors to see their friends and 
answering questions about the patients' condition. 
Once an order was issued that the day officer must 
get up at five-thirty to be on hand to inspect the 
meat which was brought to the Island by the 
first boat. That seemed the limit. To be on 
hand two hours earlier, for what? I knew the 
meat was frequently bad, but I also knew that 
it was politics, not the doctors and superintendent, 
that controlled the supply of meat as well as all 
other food. I waited until the meat was rotten 
enough to make sure I would carry my point. 
One morning it was so soft and slimy I could stick 
my finger through any part of it. I reported it 



34 
to the steward who brought the superintendent, 
and the meat, about one ton, was sent back to the 
city on the boat. That was the last time the meat 
was ever inspected. The superintendent had been 
told that there was a meat inspector regularly 
appointed who looked after the meat before it 
was sent to the hospital. 

When I received my appointment at King's 
Park, New York, I saw the general superintendent, 
who wanted to know my political persuasion. 
That was all he required to know. I never saw 
the superintendent until I was appointed physician 
to the hospital and sent there on duty. Neither 
the superintendent nor general superintendent 
ever advised in anything. In the whole six years 
I never knew of anything being done toward the 
cure of the mind. Some of the doctors could not 
even be civil to patients. I was at King's Park 
about the time a former patient shot Dr. Lloyd 
at Flatbush. Dougherty asked Dr. Lloyd if Dr. 
Fleming, the superintendent, was in. Dr. Lloyd 
snarled at him as if he were a dog, and wanted to 
know why he was always annoying Dr. Fleming. 
Dougherty simply said: "Well, you'll do," and 
put a bullet through his heart. 

The superintendent at King's Park seemed to 
think he owned everything. It was my assistant, 
my attendants. He actually made arrangements 
with two politicians, married men, allowing them 
to take two of the young women attendants to a 
ball at Northport. 

I always considered that I was paid by the 
Government to look after their wards, and while 
I had private patients, both in New York City 



35 
and King's Park, especially at the latter place, 
where there were many laborers working on the 
contracts, I never told patients or attendants I 
had so much to do I could not give them attention. 



THE FIRST ASSISTANT PHYSICIAN. 

The whole male part of the hospital, until the 
new hospital was ready for patients, appeared to 
be one medical service, and I understood that the 
first assistant had entire charge of it up to a few 
months previous to my admission, when a second 
assistant was appointed. Although I saw the 
first assistant examine new patients and treat old 
ones, he did not have anything to do with the 
treatment of my case except when the second 
assistant was absent. An attendant, soon after 
my admission, told me that I was a special patient 
of the second assistant, and that no one else was 
supposed to have anything to do with me. 

The first assistant had the entire supervision 
of everything. He selected the room I should 
occupy when first transferred from ward ten to 
nine, and allowed me to work in the dining-room. 
He asked me about my clothes and wanted to 
know if there was anything I wished for. His 
gentle manner, his thoughtfulness of all those 
about him, his entire lack of resentment, his 
whole-souled gentlemanly way, would win the 
heart of any man. He was always truthful and 
honest, and treated all patients alike. I noticed 
particularly that every morning he had a little 
piece of tobacco for one helpless patient and that 



36 
pleased me, for if a patient is to be allowed tobacco 
at all, and it was allowed by those higher in 
authority, then it should be dealt out every day 
and in a definite quantity. 

He was a Free Mason and accepted a greeting 
as a brother. He asked me my nationality and, 
told me that he was of the same descent. He was 
never offended at anything I would ask him. 
When I wanted to know to what church he be- 
longed, he told me he had never made any profes- 
sion of religion. When I asked him for letter 
paper or anything I wanted I knew that if he 
promised I was certain to receive it, and if he did 
not promise, I felt satisfied there must be some 
good reason why I should not have it. When he 
took a letter to mail for me there was never any 
doubt in my mind about its delivery. It was a 
long time before I could believe he was not the 
superintendent, although frequently told by pati- 
ents who were better acquainted with the place 

that Dr. H was the head of the hospital. 

The first assistant looked after the minutest 
details, and if he had only had the authority back 
of him, things would have been different. I 
recollect one morning he brought the superin- 
tendent to the toilet room to show him where a 
square of glass had been broken out of the door 
in ward nine, but the superintendent just laughed 
at him, and said he guessed it was as good as the 
rest of the place. I know, too, that the proper 
holder for toilet paper, and the paper itself, would 
have been furnished if he had had the authority 
to order it, for he had reported it more than once 
to the superintendent. 



37 

He not only treated me as a human being, 
but had respect for my medical knowledge and 
asked my opinion. He was not afraid or ashamed 
of anything he did or of the way he treated the 
patients before me. I often thought if I could 
have him for my physician that would be all I 
would want. 

The treatment he gave me during his assistant's 
vacation enabled me to get my bearings, and was 
sufficient to show me what was needed to effect a 
cure in my case. If he had had the co-operation 
of the attendants he would have been able to do 
still more for me but, although he allowed me to 
work in the dining-room, the attendant after a 
time without consulting him refused to have me 
remain, and although he prescribed medicine for 
me I was allowed to have it or not at the whim of 
the attendant who was giving out the medicines. 

He realized how little he knew and how little 
any doctor knows about the treatment of the 
insane, and was willing to receive new light or to 
allow any man to use what means were at his 
disposal to help himself toward recovery, and to 
make the place, to which so many unfortunate 
beings must be consigned, as habitable as possible. 

Just to please me he had a suit of clothes made 
for me by the hospital tailor, he transferred me to 
ward eleven, and allowed me a parole at my 
request; in fact, as far as lay in his power, did 
everything that he could do toward my recovery. 
His every word and action is beyond criticism, 
and he is one to whom I shall always feel grateful 
for his kindness to me and his thoughtfulness of 
all others. 



38 

THE SECOND ASSISTANT PHYSICIAN, THE 
DOCTOR IN CHARGE. 

That the reader may understand the situation 
it is necessary to explain that while there were 
three assistant physicians who visited the wards 
of the old hospital where I received most of my 
treatment there was only one doctor regularly in 
charge, and to him the patient must look. It is 
because the second assistant is a type of physician 
with whom I am personally acquainted on duty 
in State Hospital work to-day that I attempt to 
describe him. I was introduced to him in the 
office of the assistant superintendent on my admis- 
sion and was given into his care. His manner was 
harsh and overbearing from the first moment of 
my admission to the hour of my leaving. His 
attitude towards attendants and visitors was the 
same as towards patients. While he knew and 
spoke about the patients as not being responsible, 
he expected them to act as if in absolute control 
of themselves and met any untoward action on 
their part in a spirit of revenge. 

It is certain if I had had my choice of all the 
medical men I know he would have been the last. He 
may possess a fair education and be able to pass a 
creditable examination in medicine but he is certain- 
ly no physician. The way in which he allowed the 
attendants to almost smother and choke me to 
death after feeding me could not but lead one to 
feel that he was not being cared for by a physician 
but by a brutal inhuman monster. He sent me 
out in the blazing sun with only a narrow brimmed 
hat when I told him I could not stand the glare 



39 
with my dilated pupils. In the cold weather the 
attendant would put a woollen undervest on me 
one time and a cotton one the next, but the doctor 
paid no attention to my request that I be allowed 
my woollens continuously as I was weak and felt 
the cold. He would order the blankets off my 
bed when I was cold and never take the trouble 
to feel my body. He never asked patients any- 
thing about their condition and would not furnish 
treatment on their own reports. One morning I 
felt very badly and mentioned several symptoms, 
but he just remarked that I had a lot of ailments 
and said I would have to understand that he had 
many patients to look after and he could not give 
so much time to one. With all the work he 
thought he was doing he could find time to make 
calls on his private patients in the city. If a 
patient were to receive a little direct treatment 
and not be compelled to chase after the doctor for 
everything he needed, or if the patient could tell 
the attendant and have it reported, it would not 
require more than a minute of his time each day. 
After a time I found exactly where I stood. I 
needed treatment for my liver, and I spoke to him 
about it, but he expressly told me that if I thought 
I was going to treat myself I was greatly mistaken, 
as they would not stand for it. His treatment of 
other patients was similar. He refused to treat 
one patient who had skin disease because he 
would not remain in bed. He told Mr. D. he 
would not have anything to do with him unless 
he would keep quiet, and Mr. D. could not keep 
quiet. 

A doctor's very presence is helpful to a 



40 
patient whom he treats kindly, honestly and 
truthfully, but the second assistant's overbearing 
manner and insulting remarks always made me 
very nervous and excited. When my wife came 
I was allowed to put on my new suit, and he 
remarked that I looked like a winner. The 
supervisor was making fun of the change pocket 
in my pants and called it a watch pocket. The 
doctor said it would do for an alarm clock. One 
morning as he came into the ward I was running 
a polisher, and he remarked in a very disagreeable 
manner that he supposed I was trying to beat the 
record. The day I left I wrapped a few of my 
belongings in a paper package. I was to be taken 
part way by an attendant. The doctor said we 
would look like emigrants with that bundle and 
wanted to know why I did not express it. I was 
absolutely in the care of the State; why not offer 
to express the package instead of speaking so 
insultingly ? 

From first to last he seemed to treat me with 
a feeling of spite and retaliation. Although he 
told a relative that I had not a rational thing to 
say to him still he held me responsible for every 
action. One day I became very excited on 
account of his harshness and swore at him, and he 
ordered the attendant to take my clothes from me 
and put me to bed for three days. This was not 
punishment for swearing, but for daring to speak 
disapprovingly of his imperial highness, the 
assistant physician in charge. Those of you who 
know anything about the disturbed ward of a 
hospital know that if patients were put to bed 
three days every time they swear there would be 



41 
few up and dressed. When I spoke to him about 
the redness in the corner of my eye and asked him 
if he thought it was from the pounding on the 
head attendant R. gave me his only reply was: 
"I guess you got even with Pat." I was told by 
the superintendent to speak to the first assistant 
about being transferred from the disturbed ward 
to the quiet ward eleven. As he was away I had 
to wait three weeks for an opportunity of speaking 
about it to him and when he had granted my 
request, I told the second assistant I was trans- 
ferred. He snapped out: "Let the doctor who 
transferred you see that you sleep." It seems to 
me that had I been the physician in his place I 
would have been glad to see a patient benefitted 
and pleased, and would have assured him of the 
same care and attention on that ward as he would 
have received on the former one. 

It was evident that everything I did and 
many things I did not do were reported to him 
by attendant R., and I was always censured. One 
day as I was cleaning up after a shave Pat told 
him I was playing in the water; and he ordered 
me to stop. One patient, H. S., could pull down 
off the rollers as many towels as he pleased and 
then tear them to pieces, but because I tore one 
off to use two or three times, it was reported to 
the doctor. One day a policeman came on the 
ward, and I spoke to him and asked him if he 
knew Mr. Y., the officer who sat up with me the 
night previous to my being taken to the hospital. 
He said he did, and I asked him to remember me 
to him and to let him know I was getting along 
well. The doctor happened to be on the ward 



42 
when I spoke to the policeman and he wanted to 
know if I knew him. I explained that I was 
merely sending a message to Officer Y. He was 
very angry and found fault with me for speaking 
to a stranger, and again the next day brought it up. 
The fact that my memory was good seemed to 
bother him and he acted as if he was afraid to have 
me speak to strangers. He frequently said to me: 
"You cannot remember." He even asked my 
wife if I remembered things and she told him I 
could remember everything since I was four years 
old. How much better it would have pleased him 
to be told my memory was obliterated and my 
mind a blank. 

He was very uncommunicative about himself. 
He would ask me my religion, what languages I 
could speak and many other questions, but would 
not tell anything about himself. With the 
Catholics he appeared to be a Catholic, and with 
the Protestants he appeared to be a Protestant 
and a Free Mason. The first assistant told me 
that he said he was a Mason and the third assistant 
said he guessed he was, but I told him there was 
no guessing in Masonry. Everything is true to the 
plumb-line. 



THE THIRD ASSISTANT PHYSICIAN. 

Just before the second assistant left for his 
vacation in the early summer he brought around 
the young physician who was to take his place 
and introduced him, but as the hospital was being 
greatly enlarged he was talked of on the wards as 
the new doctor. He was a gentleman in the high- 



43 
est sense of that word, for nowhere does a man's 
characteristics, actions and manners stand out so 
prominently as in his conduct toward the patients. 
He was a Christian young man, an Episcopalian, 
he told me, and sang in the Protestant choir on 
certain Sundays. His pleasant manner was very 
welcome to the patients. 

Nothing could be clearer than that a young 
physician entering upon state hospital work needs 
a special education in that line and instruction 
from someone who knows more about psychology 
than a member of a state hospital staff. There 
was very little instruction given in psychiatry in 
the Medical Colleges I attended, and they were 
considered the best, both in Canada and the 
United States, and it has not materially improved 
since I graduated. It was evident that the new 
doctor felt, as my medical friend in his letter said he 
felt, very helpless in my presence. But when I told 
him that the mosquitoes were very annoying and 
were keeping me awake at night, he said: "Now, 
when you talk about mosquitoes I know what you 
are talking about." When I told the second 
assistant about the mosquitoes bothering me and 
showed him the marks of the bites, he insolently 
replied that he did not see how the mosquitoes 
could bite through my thick hide. 

The contrast between the third assistant's 
manner toward the patients and that of the second 
assistant was very great. The former understood 
when a patient spoke of his ailments rationally 
and would furnish treatment, while the second 
assistant refused to prescribe from the patient's 
report. 



44 

THE STAFF MEETING. 

The staff of the hospital was made up of the 
superintendent, assistant superintendent, three 
men and two women, all registered physicians. 
At certain intervals staff meetings were held when 
a few of the patients were taken before a part of 
the staff to be examined. In the new buildings 
the staff meetings were held in the office of the 
assistant physician, directly facing the ward in 
which I was' placed, and I noticed both men and 
women doctors present when patients were 
examined. There were no women present at the 
staff meeting I attended, which was held in the 
assistant superintendent's office, and which was 
composed of the superintendent, three assistant 
physicians and a stenographer. 

One morning during Holy Week, one of the 
attendants came to me and said: "Come with me 
to the office. They are going to have a staff 
meeting." He took me downstairs into the 
medical library where we waited until two other 
patients were examined. While in the library 
I felt natural, but in the presence of the doctors 
I felt like a witness in the box before a judge and 
jury. I did not obtain a clear idea of what the 
questions involved, and no effort was made to 
make them clear as is done in court. The ques- 
tions were taken from a history extending over 
several months, and I was unable at the moment 
to recall just what these questions referred to. 
I talked somewhat at random and asked for a 
stenographer, remarking that I did not wish to 
say things twice. The doctor in charge, pointing 



45 
to a young lady, said: "There is one." I told 
them I was a trustee of the Baptist Social Union 
of the city, a Union which includes the eighteen 
Baptist Churches. I turned to the second assist- 
ant and said: "You are my man," and then to the 
first assistant: "You had to give me this suit," 
pointing to the clothes I had on and which, at my 
request, he had had made for me by the hospital 
tailor. The second assistant tapped me below 
the knees and asked me if I could smile, at which 
I made an attempt. He also asked if I could 
behave myself if I were allowed to go home. How 
was I to know without an opportunity to try 
myself ? 

It was evident that the doctor in charge 
thought he knew all about my case, and the rest 
of the staff bowed to his supposed superior knowl- 
edge. He was like a prestidigitator who, with 
two little taps of his magic finger below my knees 
and a request for me to smile, could demonstrate 
to those assembled, although his superiors in 
position and experience, that I was a physical 
and mental wreck. 

It was evident also that the superintendent 
was perfectly familiar with the doctor's version 
of my case. He, the superintendent, told my 
wife that they had gone over my case five times, 
and no doubt he had considered it with the mem- 
bers of his staff, but this was the only personal 
examination he had made. It might be all right 
for the superintendent to depend entirely upon 
his or I will say the assistants, for the superin- 
tendent does not appoint his assistants, if they 
were truthful and honest, but the doctor in charge 



46 

told my wife not to give up hope— that he differed 
with the other doctors and thought I would 
recover — while the superintendent told her that 
the doctor in charge had no hope of my recovery. 

The superintendent asked me: "How about 
electricity?" I replied that electricity was God's 
power. He then asked: "How about numbers?" 
I told him numbers did not bother me, that seven 
was God's perfect number. He also asked about 
horses, and I said there was nothing about horses. 
He then spoke about begging and asked me what 
I wanted. I told him I did not want anything, 
that Colonel S. had promised me anything I 
wanted. He made some remark concerning what 
I had said about the truth, and in an assuring tone 
said that the State of New York was back of me 
to tell the truth. He wanted to know if I could 
tell him whether the following Sunday was included 
in the forty days of Lent or not, and I replied that 
he would have to ask the Catholics. He answered 
that the Catholics could not tell him. 

This concluded my examination and the staff 
meeting. I was all in a perspiration after it was 
over, and asked the doctor in charge to do some- 
thing for me. He said he would see me on the 
ward but did not keep his promise. 

Under separate headings I have answered the 
questions asked, as I would have tried to answer 
them at the staff-meeting if I had been talked to 
slowly, and given time and explanations of what 
the questions referred to. 

While these examinations may, to some extent, 
enable those in authority to understand the mental 
condition of the patient, they do not assist in any 



47 
way toward his recovery. Nothing is ever done 
toward curing the patient. I am satisfied beyond 
the possibility of contradiction that there was 
never from first to last a single suggestion made 
to the doctor who had charge of the medical work 
as to the advisable course to pursue in my case, 
and if there had been I am equally satisfied it 
would have been entirely ignored. The doctor 
remarked on one occasion when I asked for medi- 
cine, that we would give Dame Nature a chance. 
My medical friend from the city had written that 
if I could get out of doors I would at least be more 
cheerful. I told the assistant superintendent 
that it was my natural right to be allowed out of 
doors, and he had the authority to order that I 
be allowed out. They were short of attendants, 
but I told the doctor that friends in the city would 
come and take me out for a walk or drive and be 
responsible for my safe return, or would be pleased 
to pay for a special attendant, yet nothing was 
ever done to allow me to have a little liberty in 
the fresh air and sunshine, even in the lovely 
months of May and June, although to be out of 
doors in seasonable or unseasonable weather was 
helpful and most enjoyable. 

It is a well understood scientific fact that 
Morphia does not destroy the tissues; on the 
contrary, it preserves them. Its abrupt removal 
in my case simply caused great functional disturb- 
ance of the mental and nervous systems, yet this 
functional disturbance was identical with that of 
patients who had never taken morphia, so that it 
seems to me the cure effected in my case ought 
to be of great assistance in the proper care and 



48 
treatment of those with functional disturbance 
of the mind. The treatment of the morphia 
habit, whether the patient has been addicted to 
its use for one year or twenty, ought to be so well 
understood that failure to cure or death would be 
a remote possibility. 

What seems to me should be done is, in the 
first place, to have a physician sent out with the 
attendants to bring in the patient, just the same 
as a doctor is sent out with the ambulance to 
bring a sick man to any hospital. In that way 
the physician would be able to obtain a complete 
history of the case from the family and friends. 
As there are different methods of treating the 
morphia habit, there ought to be a staff meeting 
held immediately on the arrival of the patient, 
not six months later. The history of the case as 
received from the friends by the ambulance doctor 
should be read, the patient questioned, and a 
definite plan of treatment decided upon with 
someone designated to see that that plan is carried 
out. In the case of a morphia habit, if they thought 
he was worth while curing, let them decide 
whether to adopt the gradual reduction method, 
the hyoscine treatment, or a gradual reduction 
with increasing doses of soda bromide, hot baths 
to be regularly given with whatever method is 
decided upon. If the staff conclude that the 
patient is not worth the time and trouble and 
expense, let that be understood, lock the patient 
in the disturbed ward and let him wear himself 
out in ten or twelve days, as the doctors told my 
friends I would do. Or if he survived the shock 
of absolute removal and no treatment, let him 



49 
lapse into a chronic condition and die of paresis 
or something else in a couple of years, as was the 
opinion of the learned medical gentlemen in my 
case. 



HORSES. 



The mental condition that produces the idea 
about horses appeared to come from the patient's 
religion, at least the patient and I who regarded 
the white horses as ours were Christians. One day 
as we stood together by the window, looking over 
the grounds of the new hospital, men were levelling 
them with two teams of white horses. The doctor 
in charge came up to where George S. and I were 
standing and George began to talk about the 
horses. He remarked to the doctor that the 
white horses were his, and although there were no 
black horses to be seen he said the black horses 
were mine. I had passed the condition where I 
thought as he did about the white horses. 

I knew George S. From the fact that he is 
a German I would guess that he is a Lutheran, 
but our religion is similar. I had a little talk 
with him in the toilet-room some weeks before. 
We were speaking of miracles, and I said I did not 
believe that there were miracles in our day as in 
Biblical times; that I did not believe God would 
cause an earthquake or anything else to unlock 
the doors and let us out. He replied that there 
were miracles of grace. I knew by this and other 
things we talked about that he was a Christian, 
a converted man, as we Baptists put it, and with 



50 
our spiritual vision we saw things alike. It may 
seem to some that horses really belong to colors 
and they do in part. Horses are different from 
all other animals. 

At the time the doctor talked with us I knew 
that the horses belonged to the State and told him 
so. My mind had become natural and yet just 
at that time I told the first assistant he could drive 
the white horse which really belonged to him. 
By this I meant that he was the one man in the 
place who treated everybody honestly and truth- 
fully, and whose conduct in every instance was 
above criticism. 

A patient who looks upon horses as George S. 
did at this time is a long way over the line. He is 
too spiritual to know that it is necessary for him 
to eat, much less to work for what he did eat. 
Without help or treatment he may return to the 
natural as he is young, but as he is melancholy on 
account of the death of friends and is shamefully 
abused at times, it is very doubtful. 



COLORS. 



Since leaving the hospital I have read: "An 
absolute scientific reason exists for our feelings 
regarding colors. Black is the mourning of the 
atheist, for it expresses annihilation, midnight 
gloom, the total deprivation of light and joy. 
White is reflex undivided vibration in perfect 
relation, light, love, harmony, the choral song, the 
ultimate ecstasy. For mourning the Syrians chose 



51 
sky blue; symbol — the loved have gone to 
heaven." Other patients referred to other colors 
but these three, black, blue and white, were the 
colors that were constantly in my mind. 

The first two nights in the hospital I was 
able to see the old black devil. I recollect saying: 
"They paint him red but he is black." After I 
was better a black cat that ran about the yard 
always annoyed me. A black cow grazing in a lot 
near by disturbed me. I spoke to another patient 
about it and he said that the cow had the red 
blood as well as other cows. At the races the first 
day the black horse was the chief attraction. The 
drinking, gambling and low vices were black. In 
the hospital the rough abusive attendants, night 
supervisor and doctor looked black, while the 
gentle and considerate attendants and doctor 
were white. The first assistant wore a very light 
suit. Some one of the patients must have made 
a remark about it, for when he came near where 
I was he said he was going to take off his white 
suit. I saw him later in the day and told him I 
was glad he did not take off his light suit. He 
said: "Well, I guess not. I paid for it." His 
wearing a white suit and driving a white horse 
demonstrated to me the eternal fitness of things. 
There certainly was not a black spot in all his 
treatment of patients or attendants that I could 
discover. The only thing I could take exception 
to was the hypodermics, and I am sure he did not 
give these with a spiteful feeling. 

Those patients who spoke of the blue and 
white were similar in their religion, a Methodist, 
a Gospel Worker, a Lutheran and a Baptist. It 



52 
was always impressed upon me that I must be 
true to the blue and white. I wore a blue tie for 
a while and the lady attendant wanted to know 
if blue was my favorite color. I replied: "Blue 
and white." When the doctor came into my room 
one afternoon as I lay in bed, he went over the 
words, Hypnotism, Christian Science, Spiritualism, 
and then asked if I would like to be hypnotized. 
I did not answer him. That night as I went from 
my room to the bathroom, I looked out of the 
window and was more than surprised to see the 
clouds on my left from the zenith to the horizon 
dividing the sky that was in view exactly into two 
parts, blue and white. The next morning, when 
the doctor called, I told him I guessed it was 
eternity, for the sky last night was blue and white. 
Everything white pleased me. I liked the attend- 
ants in their white suits. They always seemed 
more gentle, and they were. A man who is pleased 
to wear a white uniform from choice does not want 
it mussed up and is not so rough with patients. 

Other patients referred to colors. Mr. Fred 
D. spoke to me about the blue and white. Mr.R., 
a devout Catholic, told the attendant to get out 
of his room with that white suit on. I am satisfied 
if the attendant had his blue suit on he would not 
have objected to his presence. Another patient 
wanted to know why I wore a red tie and red 
slippers. If I had known as much as I do now, I 
would have found out why he wished to know. 
A new patient came in with a coat and vest of 
greenish shade. He told me he knew they were 
down on him because he wore that green coat. 



53 



NUMBERS. 



The first patient I heard talk about numbers 
was a young man whose parents belonged to the 
Baptist Church. He said he knew he was going 
to be a Catholic because he was placed in room 
twenty-two. I am unable to recall just how he 
figured it out. After I began to observe things I 
found I was in room thirteen and was very pleased. 
I talked about thirteen being my lucky number. 
It always seemed absurd to me to see a person 
superstitious about thirteen. It seemed to me if I 
were afraid to sit at a table with thirteen present, 
I would get out of a country founded by thirteen 
states, with thirteen stripes in its flag. It was a 
mystery to me how, without any choice on my part, 
and it is certain without any intention on the part 
of those in authority, I should have room thirteen 
in ward ten and room thirteen in ward nine. It 
really worried me to think that in April, when I 
wrote my last letter for some time, on looking at 
the calendar I found it the 13th, and when in May 
I took up paper to write again it was the 13th. 
It seemed for a time everything was coming thir- 
teen. An old soldier was admitted and he said he 
belonged to the old 13th during the war. Another 
patient said he had not been home for thirteen 
years, and still another said he wore No. 13 glasses 
when the doctor asked him the size. However, 
when I was transferred to ward eleven, although I 
knew room thirteen was vacant and asked to be 
allowed to have it, I had to take room twenty -six, 
which satisfied me that my mind had to come 
together, and that was the end of thirteen. 



54 
Number seven, however, was the only number 
I had spoken about to the assistant physician in 
charge, and it was number seven without doubt 
that the superintendent referred to when he asked 
how about numbers at the staff meeting. Patients 
who were locked in their rooms would rap inces- 
santly, but the attendant would not go to them. 
A patient wishing to enter the ward would rap so 
many times without anybody opening the door 
for him. I could rap seven times and my Masonic 
brother, B., would come to me. I could rap seven 
times and my Masonic brother, S., would answer. 
I told this to the doctor, and he asked me to rap, 
but I said I did not need anyone then. When he 
made fun of me I said there were seven colors in 
God's bow, and that we would not insult our God. 
I tried purposely once after I told the doctor about 
rapping, when I wanted to enter ward ten from 
nine. Another attendant came and opened the 
door and I thought I must be wrong until I reached 
the sitting-room where brother S. sat. He said 
to me: "I did not know it was you, Doctor." It 
was utterly impossible for me to get away from 
number seven and I have no desire to do so now. 
My own rubbers, 8)4, were sent to the hospital 
but could not be found. They told me they would 
give me a pair out of the hospital stock as soon as 
it came. When I was allowed to go down town for 
a couple of days in February they brought me a 
pair of sevens. I refused to try them on at first, 
thinking it was no use to try to get a seven over 
an eight shoe, but when they said they were the 
largest they had, I tried them and they fit my 
shoes perfectly. On our way down to the city a 



55 
little girl knelt on the seat to look out and she too 
had on a pair of number sevens. When we reached 
the city my wife wanted to do some shopping 
and bought seven yards of silk. I had thought of 
keeping a record of the ways the number seven 
came to me and could mention numerous instances, 
but this will suffice to explain what is meant by 
numbers. Theosophists have told me since I 
left the hospital that I had reached the seventh 
plane and was all right. Numbers never bothered 
or worried me. A patient who has no other 
trouble than numbers is not in very bad shape. A 
man does not need to be sent to the state hospital 
who is superstitious about thirteen. 

A patient who was unable to open his door 
came to the attendant who assured him it was 
unlocked. He tried again and came back and 
said he managed it, but had to turn the handle 
three times. The attendant laughed and said: 
"You got the combination, did you?" Number 
three was with me for a long time. I could have 
told the doctor in charge if he had talked to me 
quietly and kindly, that I was able to rap three 
times and have my Catholic brother D. come. 
Being a Baptist and not a Catholic, I know as 
I look back now that I was a long way from being 
well at that time. 



THE FINGERS. 

The use of the fingers had its meaning. 
Pointing the first finger at a man by the attendants 
meant to me that God's authority was back of it; 
the patient must obey it if he could or be choked 



56 
or battered if he could not. To me, pointing the 
first finger upward signified God. It was the 
great I Am. When I closed my fist and raised 
my little finger it meant myself, God's little i. 

The first assistant was the embodiment of 
truth and always did what he said he would. One 
Sunday I was in a confidential mood, and said I 
wanted to tell him some secrets. I told him he 
did not need to swear to secrecy, all he needed to 
do was to hold up his little finger with me and say 
"I will," which he did. I asked the doctor in 
charge on one occasion to allow me to take his 
little finger. He did so and asked me what that 
meant. I told him it meant two little i's. He 
said it meant the sign of the cross. I asked a 
Catholic attendant afterward to take hold of my 
little finger, and without me saying a word, he 
remarked: " I do not abuse the patients." I told 
him I never saw him strike a patient but that he 
had a very harsh, unkind way of treating them. 

Some weeks afterward the doctor in charge 
said the little finger meant little i and would hold 
it up when referring to himself. An attendant, 
who often did me favors, would hold up his little 
finger with me also ; but when I was getting better 
he told me it was foolish to act like that and I 
stopped. I discovered afterward that I had been 
using the deaf and dumb sign for little i . A young 
teacher, who had been studying with a school of 
correspondence, said they told him that Shakes- 
peare thought with one finger. This indicated to 
me that he possessed Divine wisdom. 



57 



TELEPATHY. 

There is a family of Indians named Seneca 
on the Muncey Reserve, Ontario, with whom I 
am personally acquainted. Sometimes this family 
would be scattered, the Indian husband and his 
squaw would be in Strathroy, two of the sons 
working at Ailsa Craig pulling flax, and others of 
the children would be at home on the Reserve. 
They used to come to a public house I visited. 
The father and mother would appear first and 
inquire of the landlord if he had seen anything of 
the boys. Before long the boys would appear 
from Ailsa Craig, which was twenty miles distant, 
then others would come in from the Reserve, six 
or eight miles distant, and the whole family would 
be united that same afternoon. I would consider 
this unconscious telepathy. 

I have a cousin who told her husband one 
morning that there would be a cheque for him in 
the morning's mail. It would only be for a part 
of the amount due him, and the sender was anxious 
as to what .he would think because he did not send 
it all. The cheque, she told him, would be torn 
from a book, not from a stub, and was narrow. 
In the morning's mail the cheque was delivered 
as described. 

The following is copied from the London Free 
Press, published during Miss Fay's engagement 
in that city: 



58 
GETS HIS THOUGHT ERE HE FRAMES IT. 

MISS FAY DEMONSTRATES HER WONDERFUL POWER TO 
READ WHATEVER ANYONE THINKS. 



' ' You want to know whether Joseph Chamberlain 
will ever be premier of England," came Miss Anna Eva 
Fay's shrill, nervous voice from the white sheet which 
enveloped her. Her small, heavily-jewelled hand pro- 
truded and two fingers pointed towards a questioner in 
the audience. 

Miss Fay had read the questioner's mind. She had 
told him what his question was before he had told her 
what it was. 

She had given evidence for the ten-thousandth time 
of her wonderful grasp of mental telepathy, proving that 
no human mind has a separate existence from that great 
Pantheistic consciousness which Miss Fay calls God. She 
had shown herself a powerful exponent of that new science 
— the science of mind. 

But now came another test. Could she answer the 
question after snatching it from the mind of the ques- 
tioner? Could she show herself an exponent of a science 
whose existence apart from divine intervention has never 
been proved, namely, the science of reading the future? 

Here is Miss Fay's answer to the above questioner: 

"I would like to say yes. Chamberlain is a very 
clever man. I would like to say that he will be premier. 
But it is doubtful." 

Miss Fay then discerned dozens of other questions 
and answered them in rapid succession. 

None of her prophesies was of such a nature that the 
audience at large could tell whether it was correct or not. 

People were told to look in certain places for lost 
articles, to write to certain addresses to get intelligence 
about lost brothers, to persevere in or to desist from 
certain business enterprises. 

When the questioners do as directed by Miss Fay 
and find that Miss Fay's answers to them contain nothing 
of prophecy, does the general public learn of it ? Perhaps 
not. 



59 

When a questioner does as directed and finds that 
Miss Fay's answer has contained something of truth, 
does the general public hear of it? Probably so. 

Miss Fay guarantees that only eighty per cent, of her 
answers will be correct. 

To many questions she does not answer in point at 
all. Does that eighty per cent, consist of answers which 
are of such a nature that they are certain to leave some 
ground for a partial correctness? 

However that may be, there is only one woman the 
world has yet known who can answer questions in the 
way Miss Fay does. She is wonderful. Her brain is 
abnormally developed in a certain direction. 

But Miss Fay cannot tell whether Chamberlain will 
be premier or not. No one knows. The thought does 
not exist. 

Can Miss Fay catch thoughts that do not exist? 

Any man should be able to satisfy himself 
that it is possible to communicate from one mind 
to another without words. 

I therefore conclude that if one mind is able 
to communicate with another, it is possible for a 
mind to communicate and receive messages from 
the unseen world. One such message was so clear 
to me it seems beyond dispute. 

One morning, before it was daylight, half 
asleep and half awake, it seemed as if I were 
standing on the top of a hill and my wife on the 
top of another with quite a deep valley between. 
In the valley was a roadway and just between the 
hills was standing a closed carriage and team of 
horses. In the carriage was Col. C. L. S., a man 
whom I knew but had never met. As I stood on 
the hill, there came a call to me as if some one 
wanted me and I stood ready for service. The 
message was given to me: "For C. L. S. (the last 



60 
name being in full). A message from his first 
wife. Greeting." I called this across the narrow 
valley to my wife and she delivered it. At once 
I was awake and turning on the light wrote the 
message down with a lead pencil on the end of an 
old envelope that I might not forget it. The next 
day, or soon after, my wife called at the hospital. 
I had no intention of giving her the message for 
such things seemed foolishness to her, but she 
spied the envelope with the writing on it, and 
wanted to know what I had written there. I 
showed it to her and told her I would write a little 
letter enclosing the message to Col. S., and she 
might send it to him if she would, to which she 
readily assented. I did not know at the time that 
there had been a first wife of Col. C. L. S. I had 
never in my life been in Mount Hope Cemetery, 
where a beautiful mausoleum contains the casket 
and remains of Mrs. C. L. S. When I did visit 
Mount Hope I saw the very hills and the valley 
where my mind was when the message was deliv- 
ered to me. 



ELECTRICITY. 

Before I was taken to the hospital I began 
tampering with the electric lights. When I 
would touch the socket-key the light would go off 
and on without me turning it. In the hospital 
other patients could produce this same result. 
There is certainly a difference between the elec- 
trical condition of patients and those in their 
normal condition. For a time I was so afraid of 



61 
the bell and piece of dead wire attached in my 
room. I occupied what had previously been an 
attendant's room, and it had had a bell to ring up 
the attendant, but the connections were cut and 
a piece of wire left attached. Other patients 
were afraid of this wire also. An epileptic wanted 
to know if they sent in the electricity over that 
wire, and was in such fear of it that he would never 
enter my room, although a regular bully on the 
ward. I have never seen the electric lights go 
off and come on as they did in the hospital. It 
seemed as if God could put them out when he 
wished, and it did not help me to get rid of the 
idea to have the doctor in charge say he could 
put it out for Jesus' sake, pointing his finger at it, 
although the light did not go out. I have had 
marked success in the treatment of nervous 
troubles with electricity, and could relieve any 
pain with a seventy-five cell gravity battery. I 
never used it myself and never saw it used in the 
treatment of the insane. It would seem as if 
much good would result from its use and that the 
time is ripe for diagnosing tumors of the brain with 
the X rays, and using high potential and high 
frequency currents for the cure of functional 
disturbances. 

There is no question in my mind but that the 
distance we were from the ground had its effects 
upon us, especially upon me. I had noticed the 
difference in my feelings when on the ground or up 
in the ward. I remarked to Mr. D.'s sister, who 
was taking him home without any apparent 
improvement in his condition, that we patients 
feel different on the ground. I noticed particu- 



62 
larly when I was down town the' first time and 
visiting friends who lived on the fourth floor, that 
I felt different up there than I did on the ground. 
But during that visit to the city I attended the 
French Catholic Church, and becoming excited, 
had to betaken back to the hospital. I noticed par- 
ticularly that I felt so much weaker up two flights 
of stairs in the diningroom ; my shoulders drooped 
and it seemed as if I could not stand straight. I 
had been excited, had had a cold drive for nearly 
two miles in the sleigh and no doubt my dinner 
made me feel stronger, but that did not account 
for the difference between my feelings on the ward 
both before and after dinner and in the dining- 
room two flights up. I recollect how foolish it 
seemed to me to think about it as I did, since many 
people, and I myself, had lived in apartments 
upstairs. I had roomed in hall nine, and while 
there it had been a veritable heaven, but when I 
was getting well, it was up too high. I was deter- 
mined to get down on ward eleven, where the hall 
was on a level with the ground, and I did feel 
better there. 

From the fact that the Examiner asked me 
about electricity when making the examination 
of my case, it was evident that the doctor in charge 
had informed him and the staff of physicians about 
my electrical condition, which they considered a 
delusion regarding electricity. It would please 
me to learn what the staff of medical men and 
women, and even the Examiner in lunacy himself, 
knows about the electrical condition. The fact 
that I have recovered demonstrates beyond the 
shadow of a doubt that there was no organic 



63 

disease to overcome, my trouble was functional. 
I was simply out of tune with some one of the 
laws that govern the body. If I was too electrical, 
why did the doctors keep me upstairs on those 
dry, hard polished, waxed floors? Those floors 
would certainly never draw off the electricity 
from me, and I could not help thinking it made 
me feel worse. 

Why not put me on the ground bare-footed 
in a warm place part of the day at least? I felt 
that if I could only sleep on the ground I would 
get well faster, and the few times we were taken 
out I could sleep on the ground when I could not 
sleep inside. 



HYPNOTISM. 

After I was transferred to ward nine I thought 
I was hypnotized. I was not sure that the birds 
singing in their cages were real. I thought that 
the doctor and attendant made me imagine it was 
a large ward full of patients, the ward furnished 
with rugs, tables with potted plants, nicely deco- 
rated walls with pictures on them, everything so 
beautiful. I knew I was under a doctor's care, but 
as I was not taking medicine it was natural to 
suppose they were giving me some kind of treat- 
ment. I was the only one taken out for a walk 
and the only one whom I could see receiving any 
attention from the doctor or attendant, so that it 
was no wonder I thought they were running the 
whole place for me. It was a few days before I 
knew why I was there, but one day I recollect going 



64 
up to the attendant and telling him I knew what 
they were doing now, that they were trying to cure 
me, and he said that was what they were doing. 

The attendants themselves, always teasing 
and fooling the patients, create and continue 
delusions. One night I was in very bad shape, 
was whistling and could not keep quiet. Instead 
of going for the doctor and giving me a sleeping 
draught the night attendant yelled several times 
from where he sat for me to keep quiet; then the 
day attendant on duty with the night attendant 
and the night supervisor came into my room and 
began talking to me, wanting to know if I would 
like a nurse and which one of the three I preferred. 
I said I preferred the night attendant, and the 
night supervisor said I preferred the hypnotist. 
They went out and I thought the one they said was 
the hypnotist was going to put me to sleep. He 
had rubber heels on his shoes and the soft sounds 
as he walked constantly back and forth were much 
more pleasant than the sounds of the hard-heeled 
shoes of the other attendants, but they did not 
help me to sleep. 

While I soon became familiar with my sur- 
roundings and knew the birds and flowers and 
everything were real, it was two or three weeks 
before I was sure that the doctor did not have 
some hypnotic influence over me. It certainly 
had a good effect upon me to think that they were 
giving me some kind of treatment and, but for the 
higher plane I attained to (I refer to hearing the 
voice of the angel after seeing the vision), it 
certainly would have had an injurious effect when 
I discovered that I was not receiving treatment. 



65 

The minds of many patients are ready to 
receive suggestions, but they respond slowly. 
Hundreds of times I observed this peculiarity, 
that the minds of patients would act if given time, 
Many of them can be taught if talked to quietly 
and respectfully, but there is no one to talk to 
them or to tell them anything. The attendants 
are so excitable and always do things with such a 
rush, and when they do speak it is with a snarl or a 
yell. The best attendant ever on a service of 
mine, one whose record in the roster of the New 
York City Hospital is "An excellent attendant," 
a rare record in that roster, told me after she left 
the service and had taken up the course to become 
a trained nurse, that it was the hardest thing in 
the world for her to overcome the habit she had 
formed of speaking impolitely to the patients, 
and when in the General Hospital had to watch 
herself continually to avoid speaking to her patients 
as she had done in the asylum. 



RELIGION. 

Religion disturbs the minds of some patients. 
A man who knows he is right with God is not 
disturbed, but a man who does not know God, is- 
The most painful case in the whole hospital was 
Bert C, who was so troubled about his soul he 
could not rest. His father, mother and sister 
were Baptists. His father told him he would give 
him $25.00 if he would become a Catholic. His 
sister told him if he became a Catholic he would 
have to go it alone. I told him he had a very 



66 

important matter to decide, that was whether he 
intended to worship the God of the Catholics or 
the God of the Baptists, and whether he believed 
in the Baptists' Saviour or the Catholics' Saviour. 
Rev. C. and his son, a medical doctor, dropped in 
one day. They were mutual friends of ours, and 
we four sat talking together. I told Dr. C. that 
Bert was very anxious about his soul's welfare. 
The Doctor was fully informed regarding his case, 
and I am not sure but that he made out his com- 
mittment papers, it being the third time the 
patient was committed. The Doctor remarked 
in a laughing way that that was his trouble, every 
time his mind was disturbed he was going to be a 
Catholic and when he got better he was not any- 
thing. The patient himself told me that when 
he left the last time he was an atheist. This 
Dr. C. was a good man, a deacon in our church, 
and I know he would not wilfully make fun of such 
a serious matter. If a man came to him and told 
him he was troubled about his soul he would have 
tried to show him the way to God. That was what 
this patient needed most. He told me his father 
used to scoff at his mother's prayers, and he did 
not know just what to make of religion. It 
seemed easier to me to be a Catholic than a Baptist 
because the priest did the most of the worshipping 
for us. It is very important that men be employed 
as physicians and attendants who are not pre- 
judiced, whether they are Catholics or Protestants. 
The history of the Baptists goes to show that they 
never persecuted anybody, and there were Catholic 
attendants who did their work as conscientiously 
as it could be done. The Catholic chaplain cared 



67 
for his people much more intelligently than the 
Baptist chaplain. 

I have thought over the matter of religion 
very seriously and dreaded to write upon the 
subject, but to be honest it is most important that 
the people understand. In the State Hospitals 
the attendants are certainly placed partly according 
to their religion. One ward has a Catholic attend- 
ant at the head, while another ward has a Pro- 
testant, and where I was a patient the under 
attendants were both Catholic and Protestant. 
When I was a physician in the New York City 
Hospital, it was not possible to keep a Protestant 
attendant on the disturbed ward with a Catholic 
attendant at the head. The Catholic doctors were 
certainly not treated fairly by the Superintendent 
of the New York City Hospital, for when he issued 
invitations to his wedding he did not send them 
to the two members of the staff who were Catholics. 
The other members refused to attend or to send 
a present. His partiality was not shown alone 
to the Protestants but to Southern men, being a 
Southerner himself. A man, whether doctor or 
attendant, who will abuse or treat a patient less 
kindly because he makes uncomplimentary remarks 
about his religion, nationality, or the cut of his 
clothes, ought not to be employed to care for the 
insane. 



GOD AND THE MIND. 

Nothing could be clearer to me than the fact 
that I possessed two minds, a natural and a 
spiritual. While I possessed an entirely spiritual 



68 

mind God was everything. The men, sane and 
insane, were simply living and moving in Him. 
It was surprising to me that human beings had 
to learn anything when there was such a source 
of wisdom. I was in perfect harmony with Him 
and simply had to think and the thing would be 
accomplished. Gradually I began to see there 
was a difference between the minds of patients 
and the minds of attendants and doctors, and also 
between the minds of patients themselves. I 
found that the doctors and attendants and some 
patients could do as they wished, but it seemed 
as if some of the patients could be moved about 
by some unseen power and as if that power con- 
trolled me at times, especially the day I attended 
the French Church. I had no thought of going 
up to the altar, but when we reached the seat into 
which the usher was showing us, something just 
seemed to take me right up to the altar. I soon 
saw that it was necessary for a man to know 
something, and then his thoughts could be stimu- 
lated. 

Theosophical teaching best explains the spir- 
itual mind. There must be a source of knowledge 
or how could I know what I never knew before, 
without reading or being taught? How could I 
know that God is a personal self-conscious being? 
How could I know that seven meant perfection? 
How could I know that I had a natural and 
spiritual mind? How could I know how to make 
little i according to the deaf and dumb alphabet? 
Why was it I could understand about the electrical 
condition? How was it possible for me to under- 
stand so much about theosophical teaching when 



69 
I really did not know the meaning of the word? 
There is so much fraud connected with Spirit- 
ualism, Christian Science and Hypnotism that I 
never read or took any special interest in them; 
in fact, I was antagonistic to them, but these 
things all came to me in such a way that I am 
obliged to recognize what is true and useful in 
them. I have since met and talked with some 
who are read up in theosophy, or what they call 
the new thought, and what I went through was 
so clear to them. It surprises me now to know 
how many there are who believe they have had 
visions of angels, who have heard the wee thin 
voices and have responded to them, but who 
never speak of these things except to their most 
intimate friends and those who they know are in 
sympathy with them. So many people consider 
it a sort of misfortune to be sensitively organized. 
It has been clearly explained to me that I went 
out on the astral plane, that I was unconscious 
for a time and gradually returned on the spiritual 
side until I reached the seventh plane. I am told 
that few who go out on the astral plane ever 
return. That corresponds exactly with what the 
attendants and doctors thought, that I could not 
live. I have been told also that few who go out 
on the astral plane are able to remember what 
they saw and heard. That corresponds with the 
doctor's idea that I could not remember. Several 
times he remarked that I could not remember, 
and said it not only to me but to my friends. He 
certainly seemed disappointed to know that I 
was able to recollect, and that my memory had 
not been blotted out. 



70 

X j If I had had a physician who understood 
about God or the psychic condition he would have 
replied when I told him that I had reached number 
seven, "That's well, you are all right," as one 
who understood the mind remarked when I related 
my experience. When I told him that I had 
heard God's voice, instead of having such a 
peculiar expression on his face and wanting to 
know where I heard it, he would have said as 
those read up on the new thought have said: 
"That is all right, doctor. Do you know what 
He said?" I did know and could have told him 
then if he had acted and talked intelligently, 
that God was greatly displeased with the care 
and treatment of his people in the asylums, and 
he would have said as those who understand have 
said: "That must be your work," as I knew it 
must be. Twice the doctor in charge said to me 
that the Lord would take care of His own. I 
know that the doctor in charge did not consider 
me His own. Besides, that is not what God 
wants. All men are His, religion or no religion. 
Whether these patients are looked upon by their 
fellowmen as men, angels or devils, whatever 
they may think or call them, they are His and He 
does not want men making a hell on earth for them. 
God said I was His little i and He was going 
to take care of me and I knew He would, but He 
also told me that Mr. B., the head attendant of 
hall ten, would take care of me, and he did take 
the very best care of me until I left the ward. 
He told me too that I knew more than the assistant 
physician in charge, and but for the confidence 
that gave me and the knowledge and experience 



71 

I had before being taken to the hospital I never 
would have gotten out of the place. As. Mr. R., 
a Hebrew, remarked to me one day, the doctor is 
next to God and he must do his work. 

When the attendants in the diningroom were 
fooling with Peter B., who had been given a black 
eye by one of the attendants on the ward,' and 
asked him who gave it to him Peter pointed to 
the glazier. The head attendant of the ward 
remarked: "That's the way I train my patients, 
scare them until they cannot tell the truth." 
According to those who have studied out the 
seven planes of existence, each representing a 
further stage of progress to pure spirituality, the 
fifth plane is "Truth." I am satisfied that a man 
who reaches that plane cannot help telling the 
truth. It did not seem necessary for me to 
pass through the various stages to reach that 
plane, for I started where the angel talked with 
me on the third or fourth plane. I recollect 
quite well the evening I reached the fifth plane 
and told the assistant physician in charge at 
the supper table that I was going to tell the 
truth. He asked me if I was the truth and I 
answered "No." That night I was given a 
hypodermic and had to remain in bed for 
a month. I had been well prepared to tell the 
truth, for I knew I could stand anything. I had 
been cooked to unconsciousness several times 
and always rallied, had endured the torture of 
unnecessary hypodermics, had been almost 
strangled to death three times, had been kicked 
while lying quietly in bed and pounded twice by 
the same attendant while sitting ' quietly in my 



72 
chair, insulted by the doctor in charge, supervisor 
and some of the attendants. When the doctor 
in charge, supervisor and attendants found they 
could not change my mind by hypodermics, 
kickings, poundings and insults, they began to 
deny me privileges. I was not allowed to remain 
in church. I was told every time I wanted to 
pass to hall nine where it was quieter, that I must 
receive the doctor's order and unless I went 
through with the first assistant physician or was 
passed through while he was on the ward I did 
not get through. It was certainly a tight place 
and seemed the limit of what I could bear. New 
attendants refused to give me their names. One 
said I would tell the doctor everything, but I 
said that was not so. It was no use telling the 
doctor anything but I must tell the truth. Another 
attendant told me when I asked him his name 
that he was not supposed to have a name when 
he came to the place. Then things took a turn. 
The most abusive attendant who had kicked and 
pounded me began to blarney me. When he got 
me alone he said all the boys liked me, that Dr. 
McLaurin was the finest speaker in the city. The 
head attendant of hall nine, who had been so 
abusive and insulting, remarked when transferring 
me to ward twenty-eight that I was doing fine 
and had held myself in good shape lately. He 
told me when we reached the ward to take my 
pick of any room in the place, although he had no 
authority to allow me a room. The doctor in 
charge of twenty-eight, who was always so insult- 
ing, remarked that he wanted me on his ward 



73 
and to keep my eyes open, but I knew better 
than that. 

I was satisfied there was a Mind Reader 
and Someone who could stimulate the mind to 
think. I regard this as psychic, not telepathic. 
That is to say, the patients acted separately, the 
one not knowing the other's thoughts. One day 
I was thinking about God and I thought if He 
would only ring the bell in my room which had 
no connecting wire I would be satisfied. Almost 
as soon as I thought it, Hank S., one of the stupid- 
est patients on the ward, came into my room, 
climbed up on my bedstead, gave a leap and 
struck the clapper of the bell. That satisfied me. 
I knew that God did things through men. After 
attending the French Church I wrote a letter 
home, saying I was no coward and that I would 
go to the Priest and apologize for creating a 
disturbance and would attend church and show 
that I could behave myself. I wrote this in the 
corner of the sittingroom next the office. When 
through, I left the sittingroom and went through 
the hall to the bay window where some patients 
were sitting. A new man, whom I had never 
seen before, jumped up and came at me saying, 
"You're no coward, you're no coward, eh?" I 
sat quietly in my chair although the man was 
very excited. I told him I was certainly no 
coward, and if he thought I was why didn't he 
take up his chair and smash me. He said he did 
not want to strike me with the chair but if he 
had a bullet he would shoot me. I could relate 
numerous such instances where not only the 
patients but doctors and attendants did things 



74 
as I thought them, but these will suffice as illus- 
trations. 

I cannot see any difference between what a 
mental scientist would term the psychic condition 
and the spiritual mind of a godly man. Since 
coming to London I have attended the services 
of the Rev. W., a very spiritually minded man. 
He told me that an evangelist was coming to 
preach in his church, and that he felt sure it was 
of God, because it just came without his moving 
in the matter. That is the way things came to 
me. One day he remarked to me before the 
evangelist came that he would like me to make 
some calls with him on some of his spiritually - 
minded members. I did so and they prayed for 
a revival. The psychic condition of patients 
and these spiritually-minded people seemed so 
similar that I thought I would test it. I just 
simply thought that if I was right I would like 
God to show me fifty converts. The first Sunday 
several went forward. I tried to count during the 
week but gave it up without any more thought 
about the matter, but after the evangelists left 
the Baptist Church and went over to the Methodist 
Church, this appeared in a London daily: 

"Fifty converts were the result of the work 
of Evangelists Potts and Edwards in the Welling- 
ton Street Methodist Church Sunday. The meet- 
ings will be held every night this week." 

Rev. C. H. Spurgeon was at the seaside with 
his wife, who was ill. He was about to visit the 
city and asked his wife if there was anything she 
would like him to bring her. She said she would 
like an opal ring and a piping-bullfinch. When 



75 

in the city he called on some of his parishioners. 
One gentleman said he had a little parcel for him 
and remarked that as his wife was ill he thought 
the beautiful sheen of an opal ring would please 
her. At another home where he called the 
husband was ill and the wife said their piping- 
bullfinch annoyed him. The lady said she would 
not give it to anybody else, but if he would like it 
he could have it. Facts related by himself and 
taken from the "Sword and Trowel," the late 
Rev. C. H. Spurgeon's own magazine. 



VOICES. 



It is merely stating a self-evident truth to say 
that there were patients whose sensitive organisms 
were capable of receiving "impressions that no 
well man could receive. Any scientist will tell 
you that the reed of a church organ can be made 
to vibrate so rapidly that the ordinary ear is 
incapable of hearing the sound produced, but is it 
irrational to suppose an extraordinary ear could 
hear it? 

I would, therefore, divide the voices that 
patients hear into natural and supernatural. As 
I have said in other places, I never tried to find 
out other patients' conditions by asking. It was 
all I could stand to listen to what patients volun- 
tarily told me, and many times I would insist upon 
their not talking or would leave them for another 
part of the ward. 

Only three patients told me about these super- 
natural voices. Ben G. said he heard a voice sav: 



76 
"Ben, I can use you." I did not ask him if he 
knew whose voice it was. Andrew P. told me he 
heard the littlest voice speaking to him in the 
penitentiary before he was brought to the hospital. 
I did not ask him whose voice it was nor what it 
said, but I knew all the time he was controlled by 
some unseen power. Mr. S. was very excited 
one day, walking back and forth in the ward and 
up and down the hall. He and I were quite 
friendly, and I thought I would speak to him and 
quiet him down. He told me to get away from 
him and asked me if I couldn't see he was working. 
A couple of weeks afterward he came to me and 
asked me if I remembered the day he was so excited 
and I said I did. He said the devil had just told 
him that day that he would never get out of that 
place. I replied jokingly that the devil always 
told the truth and he never would get out, but he 
said he knew better than that. 

Natural voices are simply the voices of those 
about you talking, and you think they are talking 
to you or about you. I stood outside the door 
of a patient's room one night, and in the faintest 
whisper spoke to the attendant. The patient in 
his room hearing us whisper, said: "Liars! I 
was not born in Batavia, I was born in Syracuse." 
This patient certainly heard our voices, but was 
wrong in thinking we were talking about him. 
It would be hard for me to say, after my experience 
and knowledge of the attendants, whether I ever 
was mistaken about what the natural voices said 
or not. The attendants were always teasing the 
patients. There is nothing too mean or low in 
word or act for some of the attendants to stoop to. 



77 
One middle-aged patient had lived with his sister 
and was constantly asking to go home to her. 
Whenever he would speak of her, attendant R. 
would say she had gone to New York with a nigger. 
Then the patient would yell and say his sister 
had not gone to New York. When attendants 
would be together, one would say to the other: 
"His friends never come to see him." This 
patient's friends did come but were not permitted 
to see him by the doctor in charge. That another 
patient might hear, they would say, "His wife 
has left him." The truth was that this patient's 
wife had left the city, as she was obliged by circum- 
stances to go out west to live with her relatives, 
and the patient told me afterward that she had 
written to him and that there was no trouble 
between them. Patients were told by the attend- 
ants that they had all sorts of diseases and were 
called all sorts of names, besides being sworn at 
and cursed constantly. One man was called the 
pig, another the old puke, and the usual epithet 
applied to nearly every patient on the disturbed 

ward was a son of a . I have no recollection 

of a patient being addressed respectfully by some 
of the attendants, and it was no wonder when the 
doctor in charge addressed both attendants and 
patients in the most insulting manner and was not 
always polite to visitors. He remarked so that 
I might hear it, that he could not see anything 
in me but hell and damnation. What I wish to 
emphasize is that it is not easy for some patients 
to explain the facts, and if they remarked that 
some one was calling them names or that they 
were being teased, the doctor would record that 



78 

they heard imaginary voices and imagined they 
were persecuted, and no relative could be induced 
to believe that patients were talked to as they are. 

My experience with supernatural voices was 
very real. The first two days in the diningroom 
I could hear so many angel voices above me saying 
the one word, "Jesus." The room above me 
seemed filled with these voices while men all 
around me, patients and attendants, were cursing 
and swearing and using such vile language. Again, 
while in ward nine I heard the Apostle Paul say, 
"Oh, I'm so glad," and an angel whom I knew 
told me many things that are not necessary to 
repeat here, the one important thing being that 
she had told Jesus I had the grit to go through 
with it. After I had broken the window in ward 
nine and was taken to a room in ward ten and 
given a terrible dose with the hypodermic, an 
angel stood beside my bed and said: "Do not be 
afraid, it will make your heart beat fast but will 
not kill you," which I thought it would. A few 
days later I thought God Himself was talking to 
me and I answered Him. I thought He told me 
I was His little boy and He was going to take care 
of me, and that the doctor in charge did not know 
as much as I did myself and other things. God's 
voice seemed so loud while the angel voices were 
wee, thin voices. 

I have copied the following words from the 
third chapter of I. Samuel to illustrate the exact 
similarity between Samuel's experience and that 
of some patients in the state hospital: 



79 

1. And the child Samuel ministered unto the Lord 
before Eli. And the word of the Lord was precious in 
those days ; there was no open vision. 

2. And it came to pass at that time, when Eli was 
laid down in his place, and his eyes began to wax dim, that 
he could not see ; 

3. And ere the lamp of God went out in the temple 
of the Lord, where the ark of God was, and Samuel was 
laid down to sleep; 

4. That the Lord called Samuel ; and he answered, 
Here am I. 

5. And he ran unto Eli, and said, Here am I; for 
thou calledst me. And he said, I called not; lie down 
again. And he went and lay down. 

6. And the Lord called yet again, SamueL And 
Samuel arose and went to Eli, and said, Here am I ; for 
thou didst call me. And he answered, I called not, my 
son; lie down again. 

7. Now Samuel did not yet know the Lord, neither 
was the word of the Lord yet revealed unto him. 

8. And the Lord called Samuel again the third time- 
And he arose and went to Eli, and said, Here am I ; for 
thou didst call me. And Eli perceived that the Lord had 
called the child. 

9. Therefore Eli said unto Samuel, Go, lie down; 
and it shall be, if he call thee, that thou shalt say, Speak, 
Lord; for thy servant heareth. So Samuel went and lay 
down in his place. 

10. And the Lord came, and stood, and called as at 
other times, Samuel, Samuel. Then Samuel answered, 
Speak; for thy servant heareth, etc. 

These voices were the means of revealing to 
me the proper treatment for functional diseases 
of the mind, SUGGESTIVE THERAPEUTICS. 
A man who is addicted to a habit is very unhappy 
and cannot have a good opinion of himself or a 
healthy mind when he thinks the world is against 
him. To know that God cared for me and that 



80 

the redeemed in glory were interested in me gave 
me new life and hope. 

"Know, then, whatever cheerful and serene 
Supports the mind, supports the body, too. 
Hence the most vital movement mortals feel 
Is HOPE ; the balm and life-blood of the soul." 

I cannot explain these voices except that they 
came from a real source. It does not matter 
whether they were voices or whether it was the 
stimulation of the mind which produced the 
thoughts. Thoughts are the real and important 
thing. 

The voices of relatives and friends who were 
interested in me and whose visits I so enjoyed 
were very helpful. Before going to the hospital a 
lady of our acquaintance remarked that I had 
such a cadaverous look and others said I looked 
so bad. These words were very depressing, fcut 
when Mrs. K., the charming soprano of our church, 
called with a friend one Sunday afternoon to sing 
for me and remarked that I had grown handsomer, 
it was like the voice of an angel, for I knew her to 
be a Christian woman and her remark the frank 
expression of an honest thought. 

It would have been as helpful to me to have 
had an intelligent nurse, in whom I had implicit 
confidence, tell me what the angel told. The 
voice of a physician, honest and truthful, with a 
kindly interest in my welfare, one whom I believed 
understood the mind and the treatment of it, 
would have produced the feeling of confidence 
and hope that God's voice did. 

Because a man or woman hears a supernatural 



81 
voice it does not indicate that they are insane or 
mentally disturbed in any way. 

The late Rev. C. H. Spurgeon, before entering 
college, heard as he crossed Midsummer Common, 
a loud voice which startled him and seemed very 
distinctly to say: " Seekest thou great things for 
thyself? Seek them not!" He said: "It may 
have been a singular illusion, but it made a vivid 
impression on my mind and led me to look at my 
position from a different point of view." The 
great temperance worker, Lady Somerset, was led 
into her work by a still small voice, the words of 
which I am unable to recall. It was a voice from 
the unseen that founded Leland Stanford Junior 
University. Leland Stanford, the railroad king, 
had a dream soon after the death of his only son. 
He fancied that the boy stood before him and said : 
"Father, do not spend your life in sorrow. Do 
something for humanity. Build a university for 
the education of poor young men." 

Still as of old His miracles sublime 
God works to-day in wonders new to time; 
His chosen tools are now, as they were then, 
The hearts and brains and hands of living men. 
— Frederic Fairchild Sherman. 



THE ANGELS. 

Before I regained my natural mind there were 
always present six angels, three Catholic and three 
Baptist. I had a vision of only one, Nellie Zavitz, 
a young lady who accepted Christ and was baptized 



82 
when I was. Although a married woman at the 
time of her departure, she seemed to have her own 
name. She had a body similar to her natural 
body but with wings. It was plain that she was 
sent on service. She appeared to me in the day- 
time in a dream, but it was at night a few days 
later, when I was awake and everything around 
me seemed natural, that she appeared and talked 
with me. Although I have always studied, she 
seemed to know so much more than I did. I 
lectured on theoretical anatomy and demonstrated 
practical anatomy, but while her description of 
our anatomy was very different from ours, it was 
evident she possessed a clearer picture of us than 
a radiograph. For example, what anatomist 
or histologist can ever demonstrate from a material 
brain where we think certain thoughts. Every- 
thing she told me that I am able to remember has 
come true. Much as I longed to see the vision 
and hear the voice again I could not bring them 
back, and I know now it would not be good for me 
to have them, the joy was too ecstatic. 

I only knew one other patient, Johnny C, 
with a Guardian Angel. He would say, when I 
asked him to play and sing, for me to wait until 
he was back to life. I asked him who his Guardian 
Angel was and he told me. I told the doctor 
about the six angels, and that the angels were 
trying to communicate with the people of the earth, 
but that they did not understand. The first 
insane man I ever spoke to when I was a boy told 
me that the angels were hovering round. 

As I got better all the beautiful things I saw 
and understood were leaving me. The hardest to 



83 
give up were the angels, but sleep and the hot baths 
I took myself and suggestions from friends that 
these things were not natural, caused them to 
disappear. 



THE DEVIL. 

Since the devil occupies the minds of some 
patients it is necessary to consider him. Very few 
patients ever talk about him. I thought I saw a 
black something that I called the devil, but he 
did not have anything to say to me. One patient 
said he spoke to him as described under voices. 
Another patient told me that he was supposed to 
be the old devil. I thought he meant it, but that 
same evening I was sitting behind him at the show 
and reached over and addressed him as "You old 
devil," and he replied: "Oh, don't. Sister Hannah 
has been here to see me three times." I felt very 
much ashamed for addressing him so, for we were 
great friends. 

Once as the patients were retiring to the 
dormitory for the night, one of them called out 
that the devil was under the bed. That excited 
so many of the men that it was a difficult matter 
to get them into bed. The next morning I re- 
marked to the attendant, who was new and would 
not tell me his name because he said I would tell 
the doctors everything, that he had a hard time 
getting the patients to bed the night before. 
"Well," he replied, "I managed it, didn't I?" 

Since coming to London a minister during his 
sermon said there must be a personal devil to 



84 
account for some of the cases in our insane asylums. 
It would please me to have him produce a case. I 
can assure him that there are much worse men 
who are considered sane than I ever saw among 
the insane. Such a remark as this minister made 
only reveals the ignorance of men regarding the 
insane. 



DENTISTRY. 

A regular dentist visited the hospital once a 
month. His position is certainly a sinecure. 
Any doctor ought to be able to pull an aching 
tooth after taking a few lessons on the different 
forceps and their uses. No teeth are filled, the 
dentist does not come when needed, he does not 
make any examination of the teeth of patients* 
nor are patients taken to his office. The appoint- 
ment is for the benefit of the dentist, not for the 
good of the patients. I have known several 
patients to suffer intensely with toothache and 
never afforded any relief. About a month after 
admission to the hospital, a decayed wisdom 
tooth, which several dentists had told me was not 
worth trying to save, and which I had cared for 
myself with a soft filling, began to ache. I told 
the head attendant of ward nine that my tooth 
bothered me greatly, and that I would like to 
have it out. He said the dentist would be around 
on November 23rd, and I took it for granted that 
my tooth would be attended to, and as the 23rd 
was only a few days distant thought I could stand 
it until he came. This occurred before this 



85 
attendant told me he never reported anything 
to the doctors, and before I found out from him 
that if I needed anything I must tackle the doctors 
or dentist when making their rounds. However, 
if the dentist came November 23rd, he certainly 
did not make his appearance on the ward in which 
I was at the time. Before December 23rd my 
tooth ached so intensely that I could not sleep, 
and the head attendant of ward ten said he would 
have the assistant superintendent pull it for me. 
He knew that he had had experience and he knew 
too that the doctor in charge had no experience in 
pulling teeth, but instead of taking me to the 
assistant superintendent or sending for him, he 
told the day supervisor who brought the doctor 
in charge, and he took me to the operating room 
and laid out two forceps. He remarked in an 
apologetic manner that they did not have a very 
fine assortment of forceps. He picked out one 
and tried to get it on my tooth, which plainly 
showed that he had had no experience. I pointed 
to the other forceps and told him that was a 
universal and he could probably manage with that. 
He put it on and broke out a part of the tooth, 
leaving the painful root still in. For iwo or three 
nights I suffered torture. I told the doctor about 
it and asked for a little carbolized cotton, which 
I knew would afford relief, but he would not give 
me anything. It was then I learned the value of 
hot water. One night in my agony I went to the 
wash-room. The night attendant was letting the 
hot water run, and when I reached the room he 
walked away. It was a winter's night, and to get 
real hot water it was necessarv to allow it to run 



86 

awhile. It seemed as if he had been running it 
until hot for me. I just put my mouth under the 
tap, as we seldom had a glass or any drinking 
vessel on that ward. I filled my mouth with the 
hot water until it seemed as if I would cook my 
cheek, and also wet a towel and applied it to the 
outside. It was not long before the pain disap- 
peared and I went to bed and slept. After a few 
nights of this treatment, the pain ceased and has 
never returned. 

In March the filling came out of another tooth 
and the sharp edge cut my tongue. I showed 
this to the dentist when making his visit that 
month, but he rushed away from me as if I were 
a wild beast or some dangerous animal. In April 
I told the medical friend who visited me about it 
in the presence of the assistant superintendent, 
with the result described previously. I kept on 
talking to the attendants about it, and when the 
dentist visited the hospital in April the day super- 
visor brought him to the ward and had him look 
at the tooth. He saw the sore on my tongue but 
said he could not treat the tooth without his 
machine to grind the edge. I had written my 
wife regarding this tooth and also the superin- 
tendent, explaining that the assistant superin- 
tendent knew about it, so that in June when my 
wife visited me, the assistant superintendent 
discussed the subject with her, and told her if she 
thought my tooth really needed attention they 
would send me with an attendant to a dentist. 
She arranged an hour with a dentist and I was 
taken down town and my teeth attended to, 
paying for the work ourselves. 



87 
During my stay of eleven months in the 
hospital I knew of but two patients who received 
attention from the regular hospital dentist. Why > 
with a regular dentist paid by the State, should 
a patient be required to go to another dentist and 
pay for the work? 



THE STEWARD. 

I met the steward in various parts of the 
building before I was allowed on parole. He 
always treated the patients like men. His resi- 
dence could be seen from my window, and both 
men and women patients worked in his house and 
about his place. It was a pleasure to see how 
pleasantly his children would greet the patients 
and how kindly patients were treated by them. 
I do not know just what authority he possessed, 
but as things appear to me, after my experience, 
a State Hospital needs just such a man as the 
steward in control; a level-headed gentleman 
with ordinary everyday commonsense. 

Although I had spoken to four doctors, 
including the superintendent, about the mosquitoes 
keeping me awake and my having to take medicine 
to sleep, when I otherwise would not need it, and 
although the night supervisor promised he would 
bring something to apply that would prevent them 
biting me, nothing was ever done. But when I 
merely mentioned to the steward that I was 
disappointed to be obliged to take medicine to 
sleep when a little mosquito netting would obviate 
the necessity, he at once offered to supply it. 



88 
If such a man had charge, it seems evident to 
me that patients who had not done a day's manual 
labor in years and those who had not been outside 
the ward in months, would not have been sent out 
in a broiling hot sun to fill up a washout with 
large stones, as was ordered by the doctor. And 
if he were told, as the doctor was told, that a brutal 
attendant knocked a man down and kicked him 
viciously, he would not allow such an attendant 
to have charge over men. 



THE DAY SUPERVISOR. 

On the day I was kidnapped by two men in 
plain clothes, there stood on the steps leading to 
the grade door a man dressed in uniform who told 
me not to give the axe to the boy who came to 
borrow it. That was the day supervisor. He was 
as real to me as the two attendants who came for 
me, yet he declares he was not there, had not been 
on that street for years. It may have been possible 
that I had a vision and heard the voice of a man 
whom I had never seen. The uniform, which 
was not neat or very clean then, nor the many 
times I saw him in it afterward, the man's char- 
acteristic features, and especially the faded green 
stripes on the cuffs of his uniform, all appeared 
as plainly before me then as when I saw him in the 
hospital. I repeat, it may have been possible 
for me to have had a vision of a man whom I had 
never seen, just as I had a vision of the third 
assistant, whom I had seen. But, candidly, I 
regard the supervisor as only another of the many 



89 
liars I became acquainted with in the State Hospital. 
And yet I would so much like to know the truth. 

To make a guess I would say that the day 
supervisor was a promoted old-time attendant ; 
what his duties were was past finding out. He 
usually came into the ward following the doctor 
in charge, and being in uniform, it always seemed 
as if the doctor was afraid of the patients and 
needed a protector, but the other doctors, under- 
standing the patients, would enter alone. It 
looks different to me now, and it would seem that 
the doctor required him to attend him while 
making his rounds, to add to his importance. 
Even while serving as physician myself, I could 
never make out just what a supervisor was for, 
since the doctor was expected to look after every- 
thing. 

The supervisor talked with the attendants, 
and with some of them he was on the most familiar 
terms. I several times heard him give orders to 
the attendants to take the patients out for a walk, 
but the orders were not always obeyed. That is 
to say, the attendants would take the patients 
out once in a while, but no oftener than if they 
had been left entirely to themselves. When the 
patients were moved into the new building, this 
supervisor had no authority over the reception 
ward, a lady supervisor having charge of the 
receiving ward for both men and women. The 
only occasion on which I was present while she 
made her rounds, was on the open ward, as she 
came through, timidly, it seemed to me. She 
observed that the beds were not uniformly or 
neatly made, and remarked that men were rather 



90 
helpless creatures anyway when it came to house- 
keeping. 



THE NIGHT SUPERVISOR. 

The night supervisor exercised authority over 
the night attendants, or was supposed to do so. 
Ward eleven had no regular night attendant and 
the supervisor simply made his rounds through it. 
He relieved the night attendants of other wards 
when they went to their midnight meal. 

I have seen him visit the saloon when off duty 
and have smelled the liquor on his breath. The 
most abusive language and loud talk I heard 
during my stay was when he abused the night 
attendant of hall ten in front of my room. The 
oaths and curses are unprintable. The attendant 
had been a soldier in the Philippines and told the 
supervisor he would not stand for the abuse, and 
the supervisor had to apologize. 

The first night after being transferred to ward 
eleven billiards were played until midnight. My 
room was opposite the telephone which was used 
constantly by the supervisor until two or three 
o'clock in the morning, and before five o'clock he 
began playing the piano. The second night I 
knew by what was said over the 'phone, that he 
was talking about how I slept. I asked him to 
have the first assistant physician, who transferred 
me, come to the ward, and he told me if I came 
out of my room again or spoke he would put me 
back on hall ten. It did seem strange that, 
although transferred to the ward by a doctor, 



91 

any attendant or supervisor could send you back 
to the old ward without any redress. Keeping 
you on hall ten or putting you back there was the 
harshest treatment that could be given outside of 
actual bodily injury. The greatest torture and 
the greatest injury came from loss of sleep. When 
I found the attendants did not report how patients 
slept and knew that I must look after myself I 
always asked the supervisor if there was any 
medicine for me. One night I asked him as 
politely as any human being could ask, and he 
wanted to know of the night attendant if there 
was anybody noisy besides me. It was this same 
supervisor whom I asked one night to get the 
doctor, and he wanted to know if I thought he was 
going to call the doctor and get hell for it. 

It was the supervisor's duty to bring around 
the medicines at night. It frequently occurred 
that he would bring a powder for me, and if I did 
not ask him for it he would forget it, as he sometimes 
carried the powders in his pocket and the liquid 
remedies in small glasses in his hand, instead of 
on the trav. 



THE ATTENDANTS. 

There was so much difference between the 
various attendants it would not be possible to 
consider them as a class. They all stood together 
when it came to abuse of patients; that is to say, 
there was not an attendant in the place who would 
report another attendant for merely abusing a 
patient, no matter how shamefully. There was 



92 
not one of them who took an intelligent interest 
in the patient, but that was not surprising when 
the doctors did no better. Their duties consisted 
in looking after the work, which was done by the 
patients, and preserving order. It was purely 
police duty and many of them made very poor 
policemen, for policemen generally understand 
men and know how to manage them. 

One great fault with many of the attendants 
was that they were too small for the kind of work. 
The senior head attendant, who had been in the 
service seventeen years, told me that when he 
came to the hospital he was a little fellow, and 
that he had to thrash every patient because they 
thought they could whip him. Nothing could be 
farther from the truth, for patients as a rule are so 
harmless, but brute force is the principle on which 
State Hospitals are conducted. I saw this same 
head attendant tease a patient at the table to 
wrestle with him, and then choke the patient 
because he got the better of him. I could not help 
observing, however, that the big men always 
managed the patients with less difficulty. 

Some of the attendants were addicted to the 
use of liquor, and it was evident that part of the 
abuse was due to the condition of the attendant 
after a debauch. I have seen and the doctor in 
charge has seen attendants intoxicated on the 
ward, and I heard the head attendant accuse a 
substitute sent to his ward one Sunday morning 
of being arrested for intoxication and pleading 
guilty, which he did not deny. 

When I was on the service in New York City, 
the departments of Charities and Correction were 



93 
together. We were able, therefore, to obtain help 
from the workhouse, where short term prisoners 
are kept. On the infirmary ward we had two 
women prisoners, who were called night watches, 
along with the night attendant. They were very 
useful, kind-hearted and gentle with the patients, 
and liked their work. In the kitchen we had men 
prisoners, and the finest dishes I ever tasted were 
prepared by a prisoner from the workhouse. A 
sober man from the jail, although addicted to the 
use of liquor, is preferable to one who indulges his 
appetite at will. There were some men on the 
service who ought never to have been there, for 
they were too excitable and ill-tempered, drunk 
or sober. It was always a rest to the patients to 
have an attendant on duty who would sleep night 
or day, always a rest to have a man who would sit 
in the office or leave the ward to the patients them- 
selves and not nag incessantly. 

A very vicious abusive attendant sniffed 
something up his nose constantly. He and the 
head attendant, to whom I spoke about the 
matter, said he took it for catarrh. That may be 
true but he acted like a man taking cocaine. He 
marked the book, which he was trying to study, 
with a lead pencil in an irrational manner. This 
attendant was reported for abuse of patients to 
the superintendent and he was allowed to resign. 
Vicious and abusive as he was, there must have 
been a personal grudge against the man on the 
part of other attendants that brought about his 
resignation, for other attendants could abuse the 
patients all they wished and did abuse them ten 
times to this attendant's once, and vet were not 



94 
reported. I told the superintendent about the 
way the head attendant of ward nine excited 
patients for fun and kicked and pounded others 
most viciously, and I asked him if the attendant 
could treat us as he liked, and he replied that when 
Mr. B. was on the ward he had full authority. 
Mr. B. had been there eleven years and had grand- 
iose ideas of his own importance and, as one 
patient remarked, thought himself God Almighty 
and the superintendent combined. This sort of 
attendant is most harmful to the welfare of the 
patient because he does not report anything to 
the doctor in charge and assumes so much. On 
Decoration Day I heard Mrs. B. say to him that 
she would like the privilege of taking her husband 
out for a walk that afternoon in the beautiful 
cemetery near by. The attendant replied that he 
would rather she would take him to the circus the 
next day. It was amusing to think of him wanting 
the woman to remain in the city another day to 
take her epileptic husband, who had been a 
minister of the Reformed Church, to the circus, 
but he had no authority to allow him to go to the 
cemetery or the circus. He permitted an attendant 
to take a violinist to play at dances and other 
places, taking him eight miles away on one occa- 
sion. 

The attendant who had charge of the store 
room was the most demoralizing attendant in the 
place. He said to another attendant that he told 
both the day supervisor and the head attendant 
to go to hell, he would abuse the patients all he 
liked. He could have told the superintendent 
the same thing for all the authority the super- 



95 
intendent exercised over the attendants' treatment 
of patients. This attendant stood in with the 
assistant physician in charge and it made no 
difference what he did he was not censured for it. 
This attendant's name was John, but he was 
familiarly known as Paddy, and because of the 
way he treated patients the " Bull puncher." I 
never heard him called by his right name except 
by the doctor in charge. There was some myster- 
ious intimacy between them, the only thing I 
could learn was that they both came from the 
Poughkeepsie Hospital. That means a great deal 
to one who understands. No superintendent likes 
to lose intelligent, pleasant men, either doctors or 
attendants, if he can retain them, but he does not 
want to keep men in his hospital who are rough 
and brutal. As politics has much to do with these 
places, the roughest, most brutal attendant may 
have a pull the superintendent will not ignore, 
or he may fear that the discharge of an attendant 
or doctor may bring undesirable notoriety to his 
hospital, so he manages to have them transferred. 
It is a mystery to me why the Board of Regents 
will allow these men to be called nurses. They 
do not know or think they are caring for sick 
men; they never treat a patient as a sick man, 
they know practically nothing about physical 
ailments and less about psychology and the 
treatment of the mind. While there were some 
of the most ignorant, brutal men among the 
attendants who made the place a regular Dante's 
Inferno, there were many fine fellows among them 
— bright, intelligent young men. It is not fair 
to blame the attendants for the ignorant harsh 



treatment of patients; the responsibility belongs 
higher up. Attendants have excessively long 
hours and poor pay. 



THE HEAD ATTENDANT OF WARD TEN. 

The head attendant of hall ten, on whose 
ward and in whose care I preferred to be, was the 
best attendant in the place. He possessed the 
most amiable disposition and kindly manner. 
When I was in the first hot bath and talked about 
the Catholics the face of the doctor was set and 
resentful, and the manner in which others treated 
me was so harsh, but the head attendant sat 
there holding the thermometer without the 
slightest change in his pleasant countenance. 
He promised to tell me when I was better what his 
religion was, but I knew him to be a Catholic, 
although I never saw him before, and he after- 
wards told me that he was. I remarked how 
kind he was when I said they made a little too 
much of the Virgin Mary, but he replied that what 
the patients said made no difference to him, and 
in all the months I was on his ward I never saw 
him abuse a patient, nor can I recollect of him 
ever teasing one. He was an Irishman, and I had 
made uncomplimentary remarks about the Irish, 
but he never treated me the less kindly on that 
account. It seems strange to me why I should 
talk about the Catholics, since some of our dearest 
friends were of that religion, and more especially, 
why I should appear to be down on the Irish since 
I never had an unpleasant word with an Irishman 



97 
in my life, and man} T of the loveliest people I ever 
met were of that nationality. This man was the 
exception to the rule of all attendants with whom 
I came in contact. He could resent manfully 
any encroachment upon his rights by other attend- 
ants, but while in authority he never acted as if 
he were the owner of the place. All the attendants 
liked him, and I never once heard an attendant or 
patient speak of him except in the highest terms of 
respect. While his was the excited or disturbed 
ward, it was always a pleasure to be there and 
patients preferred to be with him rather than 
endure the ill-treatment of the head attendant on 
what was considered a more pleasant ward. The 
most criminal abuse of patients occurred on the 
ward when he was off dutv. 



THE LADY ATTENDANT. 

The middle-aged lady, who assisted her 
brother in the care of ward eleven, was a most 
intelligent woman, a devout Catholic, and the 
one person in the whole place who really appeared 
interested in the recovery of the patient for the 
patient's sake. She had visited various state 
and private hospitals, and had spent her vacations 
visiting places of interest in her own and other 
countries, so that it was always helpful and 
pleasant to talk with her. She had a family of 
devoted children and grandchildren, which en- 
abled her to understand how to take an intelligent 
interest in others. She would make up a set from 
the patients and sit down with them to a game of 



98 
cards, which all enjoyed, as there was not a particle 
of the gambling instinct in her nature. 

She was a lover of nature and nature's God. 
When I began to see just what the place owed to 
her, I could not help feeling grateful for the things 
she had done to brighten the surroundings. She 
had formerly been on ward nine and left the im- 
print of her beautiful influence there in the shape of 
birds and flowers. Her own ward was so home- 
like that friends who visited me from the city 
could not help remarking what charming quarters 
we had. 

In the early spring an attempt was made to 
have the women do the work in the dining-room 
and have only women attendants to look after it 
except serving meals. The dining-hall was trans- 
formed with birds and flowers, and everything at 
meal time seemed so much more quiet and gentle 
in the presence of the women. It satisfied me that 
if women were engaged to look after the men there 
would be less abuse and more recoveries, and the 
place made more homelike for those who must 
remain. Other patients spoke to me of their 
gratitude to this lady for her kindness to them. 
She was not afraid to criticize the brutal treatment 
of attendants, and to say that abuse was not 
necessary. 

As State Hospitals are conducted at this hour, 
I know of no one who would be fairer to the patient 
or more capable of giving an opinion as to his 
condition than this woman. As an instance, she 
had charge of the diningroom during the clearing 
of the tables and the washing of the dishes, while 
relieving the diningroom attendant. She allowed 



99 

one man to smoke on the fire-escape after he had 
done his work in the evening, but when the patients 
were taken to the ward she forgot about him and 
left him outside. When he was missed an attend- 
ant went to the fire-escape and found him still 
there, and said to him: "It is a wonder you did 
not run away." The patient replied: "What, 
run away and deceive the good woman? Not for 
the world." 



THE CARPENTER. 

While all those who had duties on the outside 
such as the carpenters, painters, firemen, etc., and 
who merely did relief duty on the ward in the 
evening, were usually more pleasant to the patients 
than the regular attendants, I mention the car- 
penter particularly because of the great help and 
pleasure his presence on the ward was to me. 
Although I was not introduced to him we soon 
became acquainted. He told me he was a Free 
Mason, but I was very sceptical at that early date 
of anything anyone said on account of the fooling 
and lying of attendants. He offered me the 
proofs of a Free Mason and I was obliged to 
accept them, and could trust him in everything 
afterward. I learned from the conversation and 
the way the head attendant would address him as 
"parson" that he had been a Methodist minister, 
and that impressed me favorably. I was as 
favorably impressed when the head attendant told 
me he was a member of the Central Presbyterian 

LOFC. 



100 
Church in the city, but his language and abuse of 
patients afterward overcame the impression. 

Worry is very disturbing and injurious to the 
mind, and to be relieved of worry is to be benefitted. 
I was worried because I thought I knew Herrick 
would be elected governor. The carpenter made 
it clear to me that it was not considered irrational 
to have an opinion as to the probable outcome 
of an election. After I had the vision of the 
angel I told him about it, and that it worried me 
to have such a vision ; I was afraid there must be 
something wrong with my mind. He explained 
that it was not unusual, and that since his wife's 
death she had appeared to him. I mention these 
instances to illustrate how helpful attendants 
may be to patients if they will treat them kindly 
and talk to them rationally. 

"THE WORD." 

Oh! a word is a gem, or a stone, or a song, 

Or a flame, or a two-edged sword; 
Or a rose in bloom, or a sweet perfume, 

Or a drop of gall, is a word. 

You may choose your word like a connoisseur 

And polish it up with art, 
But the word that sways, and stirs, and stays 

Is the word that comes from the heart. 



For the word that comes from the brain alone, 

Alone to the brain will speed; 
But the word from the soul finds a broader goal, 

And that is the word men heed. ' 

—Ella Wheeler Wilcox. 



101 



PATIENTS. 

Those who are obliged to be committed to the 
State Hospital are of the brightest of men. There 
were bankers, lawyers, statesmen, professors, 
musicians, actors, teachers, stenographers, preach- 
ers, billiardists, carpenters, farmers, mechanics — 
men from every walk and condition in life among 
the throng. It surprised me to see how sick 
many of these men were. They are not looked 
upon as sick men and nothing is ever done for 
many of them, but allow me to take you through 
the ward and point out a few. One man who was 
sent out with us to the races on a very cool day 
for that time of year felt cold and wished he had 
remained at home. On our return I remarked to 
an attendant, one who was a second year student 
of a Medical College, that the patient from the 
laundry could hardly stand the cold. He replied 
that the man did not know whether he was hot 
or cold, that one day he was too warm and wanted 
thin underwear and the next day he was too cold 
and wanted thick underwear. I saw that man 
stripped for the bath. His veins were a sight in 
themselves, his circulation was so poor. Not 
cold, when others with good circulation were 
chilled to the bone sitting in the carryall two 
hours in a north wind? Another patient with 
poor circulation had his fingers frozen while out 
for a walk for a few minutes in the winter time. 

Look at the man with the sickening muco- 
purulent discharge from the nose dripping down 
all day. They never wipe it for him — much less 
give him anything to cure the condition. Those 



102 

old soldiers not sick? One crossed the Rappa- 
hannock twice in December, another saw service 
in thirty-four battles and the absent fingers bore 
mute testimony to the truth of his statement. 
The neglect I witnessed of these old soldiers was 
shameful. Those two boys with choreic move- 
ments, one they call the jumping-jack, those men 
with Parkinson's disease, the men who never 
sleep, some of them praying all night long, the 
patients who rub their heads incessantly and those 
who pick their skin, are they not sick? Some of 
them have been there so long and have been doing 
the same thing for so many years that the attend- 
ants consider it their natural condition and the 
doctors do not know any better. If a man is able 
to tell you quietly at home or in a general hospital 
that he feels very nervous and cannot sleep he is 
supposed to be sick and is given treatment, but 
when a man surfers until he is unable to tell you 
and calls on God all the night through or raves 
about something else, he is not supposed to be 
sick or need medicine. Look at those men with 
the tremor of the lips, those patients with aching 
heads, the noise hurts them so. The doctor 
knows better. He says there is no noise. When 
attendants rave and abuse patients because they 
walk back and forth, do you wonder that those 
sick men with aching heads declare they will kill 
the man with the squeaky slippers or new shoes 
if he does not stop walking so much ? Only a sick 
man could appreciate the relief it was to have the 
black squeaky slippers taken off Joe C. and soleless 
canvas slippers put on him. They are sick with 
no one to nurse them, no one to report anything, 



1103' 
left to suffer until they wear themselves out and 
die or are allowed to lapse into a chronic condition. 
They are not even allowed to lie in bed but are 
huddled in with a mass of humanity, made to 
stand up and walk if they can, suffering or not. 

So much for the things you can see and know 
if you are a doctor or have even ordinary common- 
sense. One object in writing this work is to help 
others to understand the patients who cannot tell 
what ails them and do not understand where they 
are or that the man who struts through the ward 
and never speaks to them is the doctor. 

To my surprise I discovered what I never 
found out in my seven years' work as a physician 
among them, that the men whom I thought did 
not know anything, the men who seldom talk r 
those who are considered the stupidest men in the 
place, are the wonders. Let somebody with a 
kindly nature, somebody with a love for humanity, 
somebody with a clean tongue, somebody who 
adores his Creator and understands what little is 
understood about what we call God, wait and 
listen in the silence and see if these men do not say 
something. The doctor in charge said I was 
talking but never said anything. If he had had 
the right kind of ears he would have heard some- 
thing. You need not think you can fool a patient. 
He has eyes and ears and all his senses as well as 
you have, and something else, he has a new 
instinct or intuition, if you choose to call it such, 
which does not like brutality, lying and ridicule. 

Many patients have such wonderful things 
come to them. One, a musician, told me how the 
most beautiful song came to him the night previous, 



104 
I tried hard to have him reproduce it, but he said 
the old piano was so poor and most of the words 
had left him, but he did reproduce a part of it. 
Another patient, Mr. B., could produce a whole 
opera, words, music, chorus, dialogue and all. I 
am not a musician, but I heard the angels' song and 
could have hummed the music and repeated the 
words. I asked two attendants who played the 
cornet if they could transcribe a tune if I hummed 
it, but they said they were not able to do it. At 
that time I did not understand about the psychic 
condition, the subjective mind, and the hidden 
things beyond us and did not like to speak about 
conditions that doctors and attendants only 
ridiculed. 

One young man, a musician, whose father 
brought beautiful music for him to play, sat all 
day with his hands tight on his knees, never 
speaking. Nothing was ever done for him and no 
notice taken of him. I watched the young man 
for weeks. At length one day in the wash room 
he stood there so silent and then suddenly remark- 
ed: "By Jesus Christ you can talk," referring to 
himself. Another new patient, when I asked him 
what his trouble was, said: " I never could get 
along with nobody nohow, could not get along 
with my mother." 

Another thing that surprised me was to hear 
how little irrational conversation the patients 
indulged in, how little patients talk at all after 
they once quiet down. When first admitted they 
will give you a truthful autobiography and any 
man with ordinary common sense can understand 
the state of their minds and discover their trouble . 



105 
Many things that are talked about would need to 
be verified to prove whether the patient is talking 
sense or not. It is true many do talk incessantly 
sometimes about irrational things, but what they 
say should only help in treating their minds 
successfully. One man said he could open the 
door by turning the handle twenty-four million 
times. He was a merchant who applied himself 
a little too closely to business, and was thinking 
of the combination of his safe. The rest and 
retirement speedily benefitted him, but he would 
have recovered more rapidly under proper treat- 
ment. Another man said he discovered a torpedo 
and rocket by which wrecks could be prevented 
on the railroads. I do not know whether he was 
trying to invent a danger signal or not. He was 
a railroad man and very excited. What he needed 
was rest and sleep, neither of which he could obtain 
on the ward where he was located. Then there are 
the patients who talk about things unseen. to the 
natural eye, electricity, hypnotism, God, angels 
and the devil. These are as real to the patients 
as the chairs or the birds and flowers. Instead 
of fooling and lying to them, why not do something 
for them. Give them some kind of treatment, 
hot baths, electricity, tonics for the mental and 
nervous system, good food and rest in bed. They 
need to be treated promptly and thoroughly. 
Then talk to them. An insane man can appreciate 
the truth as well as a sane man. One case will 
illustrate : 

An attendant told Ben G. that he would have 

to get rid of his G — — d religion or he would 

never get out of the place and that religious case s 



106 
were the hardest to cure. That seemed strange to 
me, for while I did not talk about my religion I 
could not see how I was going to get rid of it. I 
undertook therefore to see what could be done for 
Ben. He had been sitting up with his sick wife 
several nights and had read the Bible constantly. 
He was suffering with insomnia. When he was 
brought to the hospital, he would not go to sleep 
or give up the Bible, so the attendants went at him, 
punched him in the face and blacked his eye. 
The next morning he came up to me and told me 
about it, but said it was all right. He said they 
told him he was crazy, but he said if he was it was 
the sweetest thing he ever knew. I told him he 
had gone without sleep too long and his mind 
could not stand it so they had to bring him to the 
State Hospital. He was worried about many 
things. He said they were mixing him all up the 
way they filled his room with those white beds. 
I told him the hospital was crowded and they did 
not have rooms for everybody and just changed 
the beds around so as to make room for another. 
Then he spoke about them being down on him 
because he wore a green coat. I just laughed at 
that, although it was no laughing matter, for they 
were really down on him because of his religious 
enthusiasm. I told him he need not worry about 
his green coat, but he felt better after he put on 
another. The next morning he complained that 
he had not slept all night and they wanted him 
to work without sleeping. I understood the 
situation of affairs well at this time and told him 
to try and do what the attendants asked. The 
noise bothered him very much as his head was 



107 

tender and the doctor refused to allow him cotton 
to put in his ears. I advised him to work in the 
diningroom, where he would find it quieter and 
would get better food. I told him to watch wmen 
the doctor came around and let him know he did 
not sleep. He went to work in the diningroom 
and slept some the next night, although he said 
there was another fellow in the same room who 
prowled around. If he had told that to an 
attendant or doctor they would have thought he 
had a delusion, but I knew how men prowled 
around and disturbed others. I saw this patient 
fooling with the electricity. It would go off and 
on for him like it would for me and he had the 
same thoughts about colors, but I told him these 
things would come all right and not to worry, as 
we were in another realm. I asked him about his 
bowels and saw to it that everything was in good 
condition, but as he worked in the diningroom 
where men received better food and drank a great 
deal of milk he did not seem to need much else. 
He then began to worry about home and especially 
about his eldest child whom his mother had taken, 
and whom he was afraid he would not get back. 
I explained to him that the law locked him up 
away from everything and everybody, and that he 
must not worry, that his wife just had to do the 
best she could and he must take it in the right 
spirit. Some weeks passed and he became anxious 
to go home. I assured him that if he would only 
hold himself and not do anything foolish they 
would let him go before long. At length he 
obtained a parole and we walked out together. 
He said the doctor told him he might walk as far 



108 
as the limits of the farm. I tried to induce him 
to follow the doctor's order, but he said there was 
no use talking — he was not going to be kept away 
from his family any longer, he knew how to get 
home and was going the next day. I begged of 
him not to run away, yet I knew he could get along 
at home and that they allowed some who ran 
away to remain at home. To my great delight 
his wife came the next day and took him home. 
I am certain that this patient never spoke one bad 
word, never did a mean act or an unkind thing 
all the time he was in the hospital, yet I have 
heard the attendant insult him when singing a 
little hymn to the sweet accompaniment of his 
mandolin, by telling him to shut up, that if he 
was singing it would be all right. 



EPILEPTICS. 

In every ward there were patients subject to 
epileptic fits. It was most distressing to be 
obliged to look at these patients writhing in con- 
vulsions, with the bloody froth foaming from their 
mouths. The sight fairly overcame some of the 
new patients at first. On the days we had fat 
pork these patients would have their worst fits, 
and wherever you went one or other of them would 
be flopping on the floor. 

For various reasons a separate place should 
be provided for epileptics. Many of them have 
terrible tempers and when the explosion occurs 
it is the blackest kind of storm. In many instances 
the unpleasantness between patients themselves- 



109 
was caused by epileptics. The only direct attack 
upon a night attendant was made by an epileptic. 
They require different food. While I consider fat 
pork that will throw an epileptic into a convulsion 
is improper food for any human being, still epi- 
leptics are better without too much meat, and 
have fewer and milder fits when they have a special 
line of diet. One epileptic, who repaired the 
willow furniture, was allowed to select his food 
and so was able to avoid convulsions and attend 
to his work. 

There is no treatment given them and they 
do not improve of themselves. In the New York 
City Hospital there was a pavilion provided 
especially for epileptics, and the fifty -five or sixty 
were all kept on this one ward. I had charge of 
the ward for some months, but was unable to 
observe any results except that the bromides 
enabled those to sleep who were unable to do so 
at times. 

Among those of my fellow patients there 
was one who, I am quite sure, could have been 
taught to look further and further through each 
succeeding convulsion until able to avoid them, if 
there had been anyone to take the trouble to 
treat him. 



PATHOLOGY. 

When the Superintendent of the Northern 
State Asylum, of Illinois, asked for a Pathologist, 
I was recommended by Dr. Spitzka, through the 
Superintendent of the New York City Hospital. 



110 
I had held several hundred autopsies on the brain 
and nervous system, was familiar with the micro- 
scope, using high objectives, and had done micro - 
photographic work, but, except in general paresis, 
I was able to discover very little. The records 
of the hospital will show the work that was done. 
I also preserved by the Tourin method, and have 
in my possession several brains showing tumors, 
softening, atrophy, running together of the sulci 
and hemorrhages. 

Research along pathological lines may reveal 
something in the future, but until we discover 
what life itself is, it will be necessary to treat 
functional disturbances of the mind as functional. 
I am not a surgeon but a physician, and do not 
consider myself a pathologist, so leave the work 
to those who are better fitted to write upon it. 

Nothing, however, showed more plainly the 
lack of interest in their work by salaried physicians 
than the fact that out of a staff of fourteen there 
was seldom one present at an autopsy, although 
when one was to be held notice was posted in the 
office. Hundreds of patients die in these hospitals 
without friends, and I found where the patient 
had friends their permission was not difficult to 
secure to be allowed to examine the brain, which 
does not disfigure the body. 



SURGERY. 

During my stay a patient while at work 
dropped a plank on his foot. The foot was dressed 
by the night supervisor, and it was evident from 
the way he bandaged it that he had never received 



Ill 

instruction in that line of work. Another patient 
jumped out of the window and broke his leg. 
Several of the staff were present when set, but 
the way in which he afterwards walked showed 
a very poor result. Another man who had broken 
his hip, was still in bed when I left. One 
patient was operated on by a down town 
surgeon for tumor of the brain. A large 
piece of the skull was removed, but nothing 
found. The epileptic who fell against the steam 
pipe in the laundry constantly complained to me 
of how painful the sore was. He would take off 
his shirt and show me a black ulcerated sore at 
least a foot long and several inches wide, without 
any dressing and the shirt sticking to the sore. 
Another man had a black gangrenous-looking foot 
which was eventually attended to. I am quite 
sure that foot became sore as a result of the 
hypodermics and having to stand all night on the 
cold tile floor. Patients with sores and ulcers 
washed them with hot water, tore up pieces of 
cotton and dressed their own wounds. 

These are all the surgical cases I saw, and as 
these patients are probably all living, the facts 
as to the results, especially of the fractures, can 
be verified. 



THE EYES. 

It is superfluous to state that the eyes of manv 
insane patients are characteristic. Through the 
eye, as well as the nose, there is an opening to the 
brain, and the ophthalmoscope ought to reveal 



112 
much that is going on in the physical. The pupils 
of the eyes of many patients are widely dilated. 
Besides the condition of the brain that caused 
my pupils to be dilated I was given a mydriatic, 
that is, a pupil dilater. It is well understood 
that under these conditions, the patients should 
be specially cared for to avoid the light, but 
instead I was compelled to endure the light both 
day and night. While my eyes were in this con- 
dition, I spoke to the doctor in charge and told him 
it was too much to be sent out in the blazing sun 
without any protection to my eyes except a narrow 
brim hard felt hat, but he paid no attention to my 
remarks. Afterward the sun did not have an) 7 effect 
upon my eyes and I could look at it as easily as at 
the. moon, there were no rays of light. One other 
patient, McD., remarked to me that he could 
look at the sun in that way, and said I could too 
because my eyes were blue. But while there was 
little the matter with this patient that one could 
see, I knew his brain was wrong simply because of 
this condition alone. 

I was certainly able to see something around 
us that we are not able to see in health. It was a 
steady whiteness that resembled the hoar frost 
evenly distributed on the window. This was not 
like a fog, for objects were as clear in it as in the 
noonday sun. I recollect distinctly looking at an 
attendant through it and he looked the same as 
he always did. On another occasion, when I was 
very excited, the carpenter doing relief duty sat 
on the ward with me. We were the only two 
there at the time and the room was filled with the 
brightness. 



113 

Under the heading of " The Day Supervisor," 
I have referred to seeing a man whom I had never 
seen before, but as I cannot believe the supervisor, 
I do not consider I possessed what I will call 
telephotic power, but one day the doctor in charge 
came into the ward and stood by the table and I 
saw Dr. V. standing beside him as plainly as I ever 
saw anyone. The doctor asked me if I would like 
to see him, and I said I would like to see Dr. V. 
He said: "Dr. V. is not here." I could not 
believe him and jumped out of bed and ran around 
to the next room, thinking he had gone in there, 
but he was not on the ward. My mental and 
nervous system was at very high tension that 
morning, and I was simply able to call up with 
my sight a man whom I had seen before the same 
as I would a word. On another occasion, when I 
was very excited I saw above the boiler room a 
five-pointed star, at least three feet from point 
to point. Up to the present time no one has 
explained to me what that meant or how brought 
to my vision. It may be well to explain just here 
that I do not ask for explanations. Everything 
I have read with reference to my experience, 
everything that has been explained to me, has just 
come without seeking the book or individual. 

There is certainly great room for fruitful 
research with the opthalmoscope along physical 
lines. When I was on the New York City service, 
I read Mittendorf on the eye and was able to select 
from the various services cases which corresponded 
with every cut in his work. We had a dark-room 
and a good ophthalmoscope, but I never saw any 
other man on the service use it, nor do I believe 



114 
any man's eyes were ever examined with an 
instrument during the time I was a patient. 



EARS. 

Many patients have what is called the insane 
ear. The ear becomes sore and the inside skin puffs 
out. The ears of patients are never examined to 
learn if they are becoming affected. The doctor 
would not know what made them sore if trouble 
was discovered, and I am sure he would not pre- 
scribe anything to prevent its continuance nor 
treat it so as not to cause too great a deformity. 
I knew all about patients having such ears, and 
when mine began to get sore I would not tell the 
doctor about it, for I thought if I did he would 
certainly consider me insane, and I know now 
that had I called attention to it, it would have 
militated against me. I knew that it was noise 
and want of sleep that was causing my ears to 
swell, and the cause of my not being able to have 
sleep and quietness has been considered under 
other headings. I did, however, show my ears to 
attendant S. whom I liked, but he said it was 
nothing but a water blister. I knew at this time 
that the attendants never reported anything to 
the doctors, and simply let the attendant think 
it was nothing. I overcame the swelling with hot 
water, so that now there is very little thickening. 

The wax in the ear seemed to accumulate so 
much faster than when I was well, and this was 
very annoying. The hearing mechanism is cer- 
tainly very different, for sounds are so exaggerated 
and are much more noticeable. 



115 



THE THROAT. 

Some patients have sore throat, a granular 
pharyngitis. It seems evident to me, now that I 
understand the reflex effect upon the brain, that 
two men I have known liad their minds impaired 
by granular pharyngitis. One, a clergyman who 
talked very loudly while preaching and suffered 
greatly with his throat, became very much dis- 
turbed mentally. When first taken to the hospital 
I called for water and talked so loudly that my 
throat, which was always tender, became very 
much irritated. As I wet my head to get to sleep 
and slept near the open window, I had a constant 
cold and the irritation of my throat was very 
disturbing. This tickling I was able to stop by 
gargling with salt and water, after I was well 
enough to care for myself. It may seem strange 
to the reader that, while I knew salt would relieve 
my throat and we had plenty of salt on the table 
in the diningroom, I did not take a little in my 
pocket, but I was afraid of the attendants knowing 
I had salt or anything else from the table. In the 
dresser drawer of the open room on ward nine I 
had seen a dish with salt, which had been used 
by the night attendants for the corn they popped 
at night when on duty. I asked the attendant 
to be allowed a little of that. He said he guessed 
it would not poison me, and allowed me to take it. 



116 

THE NOSE. 

The condition of the nose is a marked indica- 
tion of the patient's mental condition in many 
cases. It is needless to call attention to the 
effect which la grip has upon the head and the 
number of suicides which occurred when that 
disease first reached this continent. The friends 
of patients have spoken to me of the way the pati- 
ents suffered with rhinorrhoea when their mental 
trouble began. There were at least five patients 
with rhinorrhoea out of the forty on ward twenty- 
eight of the new hospital, and these were all new 
patients. It was surprising to me to see the way 
these patients would blow their noses for half an 
hour to an hour at a time. The records on the 
books of the hospital will show, but I am quite 
positive in my own mind, that no report of such 
conditions was ever given to the doctors, nor did 
the doctors ever make a note of them themselves. 
I cannot repeat it too often that practically 
nothing was ever done for the patient's benefit; 
that the patients are in charge of attendants, 
guards, policemen, if you chose to call them such, 
and poor ones at that, not nurses to look after 
the sick, to attend to their ailments, to report 
symptoms and to try to afford relief. 

One patient who had been in the hospital for 
some time used to blow his nose by the hour. In 
the morning I have seen him stand over the wash- 
bowl with a whisp off the broom or a match, 
sticking it up his nose, sniffing up water and trying 
to clear out his nose. The attendants would 
simply make fun of it and called my attention to 



117 
the mania (?) Mr. H. had for sticking things in 
his nose. The discharge from the noses of the 
newer patients was thin and watery, but very thick 
and offensive from the older, debilitated patients. 

Many patients picked their noses or rubbed 
them a great deal, and sometimes sores formed. 
The alae were frequently distended and thickened. 
The way a patient sneezed was quite characteristic 
and I have been able to determine the nervous 
and mental condition of many sane persons since 
leaving the hospital by the way they sneeze and 
pick and blow their noses. 

My own nose bothered me greatly while in the 
hospital, and since my discharge the itching has 
annoyed me at times. The alae were slightly 
thickened and friends noticed that my nostrils 
were dilated and the mucous lining inflamed near the 
opening. I have treated it carefully with a weak 
solution of a powerful antiseptic, and have been 
very careful to avoid taking cold, so that now it is 
practically normal. 



THE HAIR. 

The hair of some patients is harsh and stands 
out from the head. When the Examiner asked 
me about the electricity I took the black rubber 
comb and ran it through my hair and remarked 
that there seemed to be a great deal of electricity. 
There is no question in my mind to-day that at 
that time my electrical condition was different 
from what it is at present. During the months 
I was in the hospital my hair turned gray faster 



118 
than usual, and in the very centre over the frontal 
lobes of the brain where I thought about God 
constantly day and night, there is a lighter patch. 
For a time after leaving the hospital there was a 
tenderness under the gray spot when my mind 
dwelt constantly on God. 

The doctor in charge remarked to the attend- 
ant one morning that my hair was rough and dry. 
The condition of the hair was not entirely due to 
my mental and nervous condition. We had hard 
water to wash in and wetting our hair with it made 
it stiff. At the time the doctor spoke of it I was 
in bed, had been there nearly a month, and my 
hair received no attention. In all the time I was 
in bed, which during the eleven months would 
amount to eight or ten weeks, no one ever combed 
or brushed my hair, nor did I see the hair of any 
other sick man ever given the least attention. 



THE MUSCLES. 

The muscles of many patients, especially of 
new patients, are very tense. Their walk and 
actions are so stiff. It was not possible for me 
to bend my arms for a time and do my best I could 
not kneel down. The attendant who dressed me 
used to become so worked up when I could not 
stand still while he put on my collar. He wanted 
to know of me what made me so d — — mean, and 
I replied that I could not help being mean. A few 
days after I went up to him and told him that I 
was getting over my meanness and was able to 
stand still. This attendant, S., was a bright young 



119 
man, and while he thought me mean he never 
treated me roughly, and now that I know how 
hard it is to care for some patients at first, I con- 
sider that he was especially kind to me. On the 
other hand, the very presence of two attendants, 
who were so rough with patients, would startle 
me and make me tremble. It may have been the 
attendant who tried to give me the medicine, or 
if I was given strychnine, it may have been my 
sensitive nervous system responding to the rough 
"touch, that caused my jaws to set so that I could 
not take it, and they had to pry them open to give 
it to me. I recollect telling the doctor that the 
attendant was not fair to me, and the head attend- 
ant readily gave me a powder when we reached 
the ward after dinner. 

I was asked, while dictating the chapter on 
sleep, why I did not close my eyes and not look 
at the shadow of the rope. I simply could not 
keep them closed day or night, and never shall 1 
forget how pleased I was after I learned to bathe 
head and all in hot water, and was able to keep my 
eyes shut. 

It was certainly impossible for either doctors 
or attendants to understand a man with an impair- 
ed nervous system and a powerful body, but I 
learned to keep my muscular system down with 
hot baths and that gave my nervous and mental 
systems a chance to improve. 



THE BOWELS. 

When I was a student in McGill Medical 
College, Montreal, Professor Shepherd told of an 



120 

old musician in England whose bowels moved 
only two or three times a year, and when they 
did move the fecal matter was ejected by the 
pailful. He said that an autopsy was held on 
this old man's body and his rectum was found to 
be as large as a stove pipe. When I was assistant 
physician in the New York City Hospital, I noticed 
in the trough-like hoppers, that were kept locked 
and only run off at intervals by the attendants, 
the large bologna like stools, but as no report 
was ever made to me by the attendants and the 
patients never complained, I did not attach any 
special significance to these stools and thought 
they were enlarged after passage from standing in 
the water. 

While I was a patient in the State Hospital, 
everybody knew I was a doctor, and the patients 
and attendants plied me with questions incessantly. 
At first I was unable to distinguish between some 
of the younger, fairly-recovered patients and the 
attendants who were not in uniform, and as 
patients and attendants used the toilet-rooms, 
and as the attendants were always fooling and 
teasing the patients, when one or two of the 
younger patients told me about the condition of 
their bowels and described their stools, I thought 
they were just making fun of me and describing 
impossible conditions, and I replied that I did 
not know what they were talking about; for with 
all my knowledge and experience I did not know. 

But I discovered that patients knew what 
they were talking about when they said their 
bowels had not moved for a week or a month, and 
I am quite satisfied in my own mind that many 



121 
patients die in the direst agony on account of the 
immovable condition of their bowels, without the 
doctor or attendant ever making the least effort 
to discover their condition. I ha\^e seen stools 
that clogged the direct waste pipe, which was 
two inches in diameter ; these stools must have 
been ejected from a rectum as large as a bologna 
sausage. Sometimes the rectum prolapsed. 

I heard a patient tell the attendant at the 
head of ward nine that he needed a dose of salts, 
and the attendant replied: "I guess you need a 
dose of oil." If the attendant could have furnished 
the oil it would not have been so bad, but he had 
no power to order, nor any means of procuring 
the medicine needed, and he told me himself that 
he never reported anything to the doctor. 

I knew a patient with an obstinate constipa- 
tion, who was ruptured, and who told the doctor, 
at my suggestion, that his bowels had not moved 
in two days, and that he was having severe pain 
at the point of rupture. Medicine was promised 
but was not delivered. The third day I advised 
him to speak to the doctor again and he did. The 
fourth day the patient had no movement. We 
were sitting at the table when the doctor came in 
and I said, "Now is your chance," but the patient 
replied, "it is no use asking the doctor for anything." 
He did report to him, however, that he had not 
received the medicine, and the doctor replied that 
it was not his fault; he had ordered it and could 
not be druggist, nurse, doctor and everything. 
It was evident to me that patients became excited 
and often refused their food, simply because of the 
constipated condition of their bowels. The inter- 



122 
dependence between the mental and nervous 
mechanism and the digestive system is so great 
that one cannot be deranged without the other 
suffering. There could not be a finer opportunity 
to discover better treatment for constipation than 
is offered in a State Hospital, and yet I never knew 
of any other treatment being used there to regulate 
the bowels, than a laxative or cathartic of some 
sort. In my own case I found that the distressing 
constipation was relieved by lying in bed, and when 
I was allowed a dose of trional occasionally, I was 
never troubled. The dose of chloral prescribed 
by the third assistant had a most desirable effect 
in that respect, although it did not put me to sleep. 
Electricity and mechanical vibration would cer- 
tainly have a most beneficial effect upon both the 
nervous and digestive systems. 



♦ SYPHILIS. 

I could not help being interested in a young 
man, a recent admission, who told me all about 
himself and his trouble. He was suffering from 
syphilis. I spoke to the doctor in charge about 
him and told him I wanted him to cure him. The 
doctor wanted to know if I had had much experi- 
ence in curing paresis. I told him I had not, but 
that I had had much experience curing syphilis. 
I have relieved the awful headaches, the tremen- 
dous nervous strain that comes from the worry of 
the condition, and have quieted the excitement. 
I kept myself informed of the condition of these 
patients for years after, and they enjoy health 



123 

and comfort. A physician in a State Hospital 
ought not to jump to the conclusion that, because 
a man has syphilis and is nervous and excited, he 
is suffering with paresis. When there is organic 
disease of the brain and destruction of the nerve 
fibres, with the characteristic evidences of paresis 
in one who has syphilis, I do not know of any 
treatment that will effect a cure, but the doctor 
can do a great deal to make the life of a paretic 
comfortable for the few short years that remain 
to him. 

I served a year in the hospital for nervous 
and mental diseases in New York City, with a 
leading specialist at the head. It was my first 
year after graduation, but I never took things for 
granted. I had been shown a copy of the United 
States statistics, which stated that one in every 
twenty in New York City was affected by syphilis. 
This led me to inquire carefully into the history 
of every patient. We had cases of locomotor 
ataxia, progressive muscular atrophy, anterior 
crural neuralgia and various other nervous affec- 
tions. I was usually able to trace the origin of 
these ailments to syphilis. I told the specialist 
at the head of the hospital that he ought to call his 
place a hospital for venereal diseases instead of a 
hospital for nervous and mental diseases. 

It seemed evident to me that the nervous 
excited condition of the case referred to in the 
first part of this chapter was caused by the deep 
chancre that still existed, and worry regarding 
financial and f amity affairs, and seemed so similar 
to the profound nervous disturbance in chorea 
caused by an abnormal condition of the prepuce. 



124 



THE FOOD. 

Professor Stewart, of McGill, Montreal, who 
spent three years in the study of medicine in 
Vienna, is authority for the statement that good 
butter is the most wholesome and expensive article 
of diet, and the lack of it is the cause of much 
disease in some of the countries of Europe. 

There is a great difference in the tastes and 
appetites of men. Some men would devour large 
quantities of beans, plateful after plateful, with a 
relish, while I was unable to more than taste them. 
I did not care for the treacle. Sometimes a nice 
golden syrup was supplied, at other times 
the cheapest, kind of black strap, and both were 
thinned with water so that if you were handed a 
syrup jug filled from the top you had a very watery 
solution, while a jug filled from the bottom con- 
tained syrup so thick it would scarcely pour out, 
but black or golden, some men seemed to need the 
sweet and would drink it down. Some preferred 
the syrup to butter and would eat a hearty meal 
of bread and syrup, while I was always able to 
satisfy my appetite with the good bread and 
butter, and knowing the value of good butter, I 
felt that my nervous and mental systems must 
receive all the nourishment they needed if I ate 
enough of it. Where so much good, sweet butter 
came from was a mystery to me while in the 
hospital, and is a mystery still. A quarter of an 
ounce at each meal was the allowance, but many 
of the patients never touched their butter, and I 
often ate six or eight pieces after the patients left 
the diningroom. When I worked in the dining- 



125 
room and cleared off the tables, it seemed a shame- 
ful waste to allow so many pieces of that good 
butter, untouched, to be thrown into the garbage 
by order of the attendant. 

In the springtime the craving for something 
fresh in the way of vegetables was fairly over- 
powering. From the hall we could look down 
into the yard where the patients prepared the 
food for^the attendants and doctors. There were 
young onions, radishes and lettuce, long before 
they were served on the patients' table, and you 
did not know that they ever would be served to 
you. I have heard patients beg of those who 
were on parole or working outside to bring them 
an onion or radish, but they would not do it. 
Owning many acres of good land and located as 
the hospital is in one of the finest farm and garden 
communities in the world it should be supplied 
properly with fruit and vegetables. 

We had the sweetest bread, sometimes with 
currants in it, nice ginger bread, good porridge, 
boiled meat occasionally and good fish on Friday. 
The food supplied at the old hospital was well 
cooked, although even there if a competent cook 
had been employed, greater variety might have 
been provided without effort. For example, we 
never had the queen of puddings, although there 
was any quantity of bread that was always made 
into a mixture with onions and baked, which was 
so unpalatable. In the new hospital the food 
was of greater variety, but of the scrappiest, 
poorest quality, and the diningroom was swelter- 
ing hot and filled with myriads of flies. The soft, 
slushy, summer squash was served so many times 



126 
in lieu of potatoes and the tomatoes and corn 
when served at all were the poorest culls. I knew 
they did not try to get a cook but just gave the 
job to an attendant. I heard Mrs. A. tell Mr. B., 
long before the new hospital was opened, that she 
had been promised by the superintendent the 
position of cook. Mr. B. wanted to know if she 
had been a cook or had had experience. She said 
she had never cooked but could learn, and would 
be able to cook from recipes. 

In the old hospital the service at table was 
most distasteful. The attendants slopped the 
food all over everything, including your clothes. 
They rushed the meals as if it was the most 
important thing in the world to get through 
quickly. But in the new hospital we had a very 
superior service over the old. Everything was 
served so nicely and the attendant in charge of 
twenty-eight, the reception ward, deserved great 
credit for the change. 

The doctors have not the least idea of what 
the food is like. I asked the doctor in charge for 
permission to be allowed to have eggs cooked if 
they were brought to me. He said they had a 
large farm and a number of hens. I said I knew 
that and told him we had a large farm with hens 
when I was a physician at King's Park, but the 
fresh eggs never got past the staff. Then he said 
we were located in the finest farming community 
in the country with lots of fresh eggs to be had. 
I did not answer. We had not had a single egg, 
good or bad, that whole spring and summer, and 
the few times we had eggs in the old hospital 
thev were not fresh and were boiled hard. When 



127 
I mentioned about the eggs to the assistant super- 
intendent he replied that he never knew a patient 
not to get fat during the first few months in the 
hospital. That mav be true, as I told him, but 
because a patient gets fat is no evidence that he 
is getting the proper food to restore him to health. 
I have known cattle to be bled to fatten them, 
and who has not seen the sickly fat of an anaemic 
-person. The food is not furnished with a view to 
curing the patient. The men who worked in the 
diningroom and kitchen had better food than 
other patients. Some of the men who worked 
outside were served in a separate diningroom. A 
few of the patients who waited on table ate in the 
attendants' diningroom, but the attendants fre- 
quently ate the patients' food, although it was 
contrary to the rules. They would say they did 
not get things as good as we did. 

There was no proper supervision of how or 
what the patients ate. I can name several patients 
who went day after day on a sip of tea, a mouthful 
or two of food or a glass of milk, while others 
gorged themselves. I have seen a patient eat 
eleven dishes of dessert at dinner and they always 
gave him six or eight every time we had dessert. I 
have seen patients eat eight or ten pieces of cheese 
at supper, besides carrying off some in their 
pockets, and the next morning complain that they 
had not slept. One patient told me that he had 
eight glasses of milk during the forenoon while 
helping with the furniture, and said he did not 
have much of an appetite for dinner. 

EXTRA DIET. 

Before I was able to go to the diningroom 



128 
my meals were brought to me on the ward. Egg 
on toast always came on the tray besides what I 
afterward learned was the regular food. The 
eggs were so stale that I never ate them. When 
I was able to go to the diningroom a steak was 
placed before me every meal. It was so tough I 
could not cut it, much less chew it. I did not 
know enough to eat when I first went to the 
diningroom, but the juicy steak suggested to me 
that I must eat, although I could not see how it 
would be possible to manage such a steak. A 
patient opposite me at the table said if I did not 
intend to eat the steak it was so long since he had 
had a piece of steak he could eat it if it was tough, 
and he just took it in his fingers and pulled it to 
pieces with his hands and teeth. After that I 
did the same and ate a part of each steak every 
meal. Once it was made into a Hamburg steak, 
and I told the doctor how good somebody was to 
mince the meat up fine so I could chew it, but it 
never was served again chopped up. When I 
worked in the diningroom I saw the list of patients 
on extra diet, and there were only two or three on 
steak, and I noticed the attendant always ate the 
steak himself if there was a tender piece instead 
of giving it to the patient. Extra diet is a mere 
farce. It is absurd to think that a real fresh egg 
or a tender piece of steak would get past the 
attendants. 

While milk may be considered extra diet, it 
is really semi-extra, that is to say, it was not 
ordered by the doctor, but supplied continuously 
to the diningroom. It was usually given out by 
the ladv attendant, according to her own judgment 



129 

or whim. If you did anything to displease her. 
you would not get your milk. That good milk 
was life-giving without mistake. I could drink 
it when I did not know enough to eat solid food 
It is simply impossible to exaggerate the import- 
ance of sweet milk and good butter in the cure of 
nervous and mental diseases. 



THE MEDICINES. 

The little medicine which was given was pre- 
pared in the drug-room by a pharmacist. When 
I was on the staff at King's Park, each doctor 
filled his own prescriptions, but in the New York 
City Hospital we had a pharmacist, and although 
there were more than twice as many patients and 
double the number of physicians on the staff very 
little of the druggist's time was occupied. Small 
as the hospital w T as, where I was a patient, and 
light as the work must have been for the druggist 
the doctor constantly complained that the medi- 
cines he ordered were not delivered to the ward. 
Much medicine put up and sent to the ward was 
not administered to the patient. Before the night 
attendant was directed, as he said, by the doctor 
to throw out medicines when not given, he would 
sometimes, when I could not sleep, let me have a 
powder which had not been given to the patient 
for whom it was prescribed. Many patients 
were given the medicines to take with them, and 
to use as they saw fit. I saw patients with boxes 
of salves, sleeping powders and liniments. 

The remedies prescribed were put up in liquid. 



130 
tablet or powder form. Medicines given hypo- 
dermically were always carried by the doctors and 
injected by them. The liquid medicines were 
brought to the dining-room in a tray that held a 
dozen glasses, each containing about an ounce, 
and it made no difference what quantity of liquid 
was to be given or what amount of a remedy was 
to be dissolved, it was concentrated so that one of 
these small glasses would hold it. For example, 
a dose of salts was sent to the ward for me to take. 
It was dissolved in what tasted like proof spirit 
and was so strong that I could not swallow the 
mixture. The stuff seemed sharp enough to cut 
the rust off the inside of an iron pipe. The tablets 
and powders were placed on the tray and f requently 
saturated with the liquid medicines that were 
spilled from the glasses in carrying. 

All medicines were administered at meal time 
and generally while the patient was eating. There 
was no distinction made between remedies that 
should be given before, after or between meals. 
A patient sitting beside me was given three kinds 
of medicine, a cough mixture, a laxative and a 
tonic, out of three separate glasses, one after the 
other, and always when partly through his meal. 
There were never more than the twelve glasses 
with the few powders and tablets, the whole 
amounting to about twenty -four doses, and as 
two or more of these doses were frequently for 
one man. there were not more than fifteen or 
sixteen patients given treatment out of the two 
hundred and over. 

When a sleeping powder was regularly pre- 
scribed for me I sometimes had to take it while 



131 
eating supper, and sometimes it was given me to 
take at bedtime, or kept from me altogether. It 
depended upon the attendant who had charge of 
the tray of medicines, the attendant from our 
ward on duty in the diningroom, and whether I 
had a relative visiting me or not. When sleeping 
medicine was not regularly prescribed, it was sent 
by the doctor after making his round at night. 
He usually visited the ward with --V; night super- 
visor anywhere from half -past t-" nf to half -past 
twelve. The medicine was brou^c to the ward 
by the night supervisor when he made his next 
round about midnight, but sometimes it was one 
and two o'clock before the night doses were given 
out. These sleeping doses were given to the 
patients wherever they were. Three patients 
were usually kept in the toilet room or just outside 
in the bay window. I have seen these patients 
given their sleeping dose in the bay window, in 
the wash-room and while on the seat in the water 
closet and left where they were given the medicine, 
not knowing enough to go to bed. I tried on two 
occasions to put a patient to bed myself, but the 
night attendant told me to leave him alone and I 
knew what that meant. Whether given a sleeping 
dose or not, these patients were made to remain in 
the toilet room night after night, never sleeping, 
standing on the cold tile floor in the winter time 
with nothing on except the shirts they wore during 
the day. k 

There was no record kept by the attendants 
of the patients who were to receive medicine and 
whether they did receive it or not. The night 
attendant was supposed to make out a report of 



132 
what transpired, but he said to me that it was no 
use reporting things as the doctors paid no atten- 
tion to them. It was useless to tell your ailments 
to the day attendants for, while they may have 
made a few mental notes of what a patient did 
or said, and have answered questions asked by the 
doctor, there was no regular report made. A 
patient is never asked about his condition, whether 
he slept, etc. _Jf you are able to talk and know 
enough to rejwat your own condition, you must 
"tackle" the >cbctor and beg for what you need 
and even then you may not get it. To be obliged 
to insinuate yourself upon the doctor's attention, 
to be treated as a nuisance, neglected, insulted, 
simply takes the heart out of a man, and it is so 
distasteful having to speak to the doctor instead 
of him speaking to you that one will cheerfully 
endure almost anything before troubling him, 
especially as he seldom pays any attention to the 
patients' complaints. 



HYPODERMICS. 

Various remedies may be given by injecting 
a solution of them under the skin, but when a 
hypodermic is spoken of in a state hospital it 
means an injection of hyoscy amine, or hyoscine, 
which is practically one and the same thing, 
hyoscine being more used at present. It is called 
chemical restraint. While desirable results may 
be brought about by the use of these drugs, and 
there may be times when the injection of them 
may be necessarv, the most inhuman torture is 



•133 

also produced by them. The terrible dryness 
and constriction of the throat and fauces, which 
produces the most awful choking sensation, is 
beyond description. You attempt to swallow 
your saliva and there is none to swallow. You 
crave for water, but water will not quench your 
parched throat. The pupils of your eyes are 
dilated and the light from the incandescent lamps 
penetrates your inmost being. If you are given 
enough it will produce unconsciousness for a time, 
but the horrible after-effects, the mouth dry and 
lips parched and bleeding, last for days. The 
peculiar effect upon the sight makes everything 
about you appear so hideous. The attendants 
were constantly complaining that they were not 
allowed to use the hypodermic syringe as nurses 
are in general hospitals. If they were allowed to 
use the hypodermic the limit of abuse would be 
reached. 

In my six years' experience I gave but two 
hypodermics. One of these I was ordered to give 
by the assistant superintendent when an excited 
patient of mine was being transferred to another 
hospital. The other was given to an excited 
epileptic, in one of the cottages at King's Park, 
who was smashing everything to pieces, and we 
had no place to put him to avoid destruction of 
furniture and windows. It was always considered a 
last resort . After my experience as a patient ,hy oscine 
hypodermatically may be the proper treatment 
for a morphia habit who reaches the state hospital, 
if there is a doctor who understands his business 
and gives his patients the proper attention. The 
excitement of other patients who have not taken 



134 

any drug is so similar I would say that its use 
in these cases would be justifiable; that instead 
of binding down the patient to an iron bed with 
the heaviest kind of a sheet with straps attached, 
which are tied to the frame of the bedstead, and 
allowing the patient to wear himself out tearing 
the very flesh from his wrists and knees, it would 
be better to administer chemical restraint, hyos- 
cine, than to use physical restraint. 

It is certain that if it is advisable to use the 
hypodermic, then there is no need of torturing 
the patient in the sheet. But the neglect of the 
doctor in my case and that of others was shameful. 
I did not understand at the time, but after I was 
well enough to understand how things were done, 
it was plain that no one cared what a man suffered. 
TheMoctor made his rounds when he pleased, and 
the attendant or night supervisor never sent for 
him, so that instead of keeping the patient quiet 
with the hypodermic, he was allowed to suffer 
bound down with the sheet until the doctor was 
pleased to attend him. Once the initial excite- 
ment is overcome, there is certainly no need for 
further use of the hypodermic, as there are seda- 
tives which are not so harsh and will serve every 
purpose. The flagrant abuse of the hypodermic 
by an unprincipled physician in charge is beyond 
belief. Before I was a patient I knew of its being 
given deliberately to abuse the patient. When 
on the staff of the New York City Hospital, Dr. 
S. gave Fanny V. a hypodermic because" she 
refused to dance with him. Fanny was a most 
amiable, quiet, convalescing young lady and a 
very graceful dancer. Dr. S. was an awkward, 



135 - 
gawkish fellow who was anxious to learn to waltz. 
Neither patients nor attendants could endure 
trying to teach him. I saw the doctor and head 
attendant take Fanny from the ward to her room, 
but did not know the reason. The doctor was 
junior assistant on the ward and I had no right 
to interfere or be curious. There w T as no record 
of the hypodermic given in the patient's history 
at first, but the truth leaked out somehow and an 
entry had to be made. I can produce the record 
if allowed the books. The doctor was not dis- 
charged but was never promoted. 

After I had once become quiet there was no 
need of torturing me with the hypodermic. The 
doctor in charge knew that a little powder of 
trional would answer every purpose in my case, 
and yet he persisted in giving me hypodermics. 
One night after a dream I got up and broke the 
window. My room looked out toward the super- 
intendent's quarters and the smashing must have 
awakened him. I was taken from my room on 
ward nine to a room on hall ten. The doctor, 
partly dressed, came in in a rage utterly beside 
himself and wanted to know what I was doing, 
and said that the superintendent was hunting all 
over for him. He had his syringe loaded to the 
hilt but squirted some out and after inserting the 
needle some of the liquid escaped. The angry 
look on the doctor's face, his brutal manner, made 
me feel sure he meant to kill me, yet I never spoke. 
One night the supervisor said he would give me a 
hypodermic and lay me up for six weeks. He 
brought the doctor, and although I told him what 
the supervisor said and begged him not to give it 



136 

to me, he did as the supervisor wished, and when 
I found I had to take it I asked him to give me as 
little as possible. He told me it would not hurt 
me but it laid me up in bed for a month. The 
doctor in charge was always threatening me with 
his syringe. Once he held his hands about eight 
inches apart and said he would give me a hypodermic 
that long. One morning I asked him if he was a 
Free Mason and he became angry and asked me 
if I wanted a hypodermic, then turning to the 
head attendant, asked if I was noisy. The head 
attendant was too much of a gentleman to say I 
was, so I did not get the hypodermic. 

It may be well to give an excited patient a 
hypodermic, but to use it to produce sleep at night, 
or to jab a half a dozen or more patients in the 
morning, is most inhuman. I was never more 
surprised than to see the first assistant come into 
the ward one morning and give Nate L. and Levi 
L. each a hypodermic. It was the usual thing to 
see the second assistant do this, but I would not 
dare speak to him about what he was doing. I 
remarked to the first assistant that I was surprised 
to see him use the syringe in that way. He asked 
me if they were not noisy. He should have been 
able to hear for himself. I have no recollection 
of Nate L. ever being noisy or excited, while 
Levi L. would talk and sing but not excitedly. 
I am unable to say whether the first assistant 
was sent for on that occasion or not, but a few 
days later the second assistant caaae into the ward 
about 8.30 a.m., and gave four or five hypodermics 
and went out. A little later the first assistant 
was brought in by the supervisor and gave four 



137 
or five more from a list the supervisor held in his 
hand. Some of the patients given hypodermics 
were put to bed, but others were left to curl up on 
the floor and lie there. 

Let sane men try a hpyodermic and learn for 
themselves what language fails to describe. Let 
the people answer, must a man who is out of his 
mind be tortured simply because he talks or sings 
during the day? 

Because hypodermics are cheap the}' are 
given during the day to produce a presentable 
appearance on the ward, to paralyze a restless 
patient to save the attendants a little trouble 
in caring for him. These ends could be attained 
by providing a yard in which the patients could 
spend part of the day away from the attendants. 



TRIONAL— BAYER. 

Some druggists sell a fake Swiss trional, which 
is ethylol and will not produce the same results. 
Trional is a true hypnotic. I write upon this one 
remedy because from my personal experience 
with it I know that it will overcome pain and 
excitement, and put the mind under absolute 
sedative control in half an hour when taken at 
bedtime. I have prescribed it since leaving the 
hospital and have found it most satisfactory. It 
produces drowsiness the next day, and ten grains 
given one night would enable me to sleep fairly 
well the next night. Night doses were given so 
late that they only allowed a very short sleep 
before you were awakened in the morning bv the 



138 

patients who slept when they retired at 8 p.m. 
The doctor in charge would always wake me up 
and find fault with me for sleeping in the daytime 
if I laid down on the settee after breakfast the 
next morning after receiving a powder. If trional 
is administered three times a day it is cumulative 
and poisonous in its effects. I never used it 
personally or in my practice before going to the 
hospital, but I find by the highest medical 
authority a verification of my experience. 

During the month the doctor in charge was 
on vacation, the first assistant prescribed a 
powder for me three times a day. Some attend- 
ants would not allow me to have the powder, but 
as various attendants handed out the medicine 
I received a good many of them, enough to produce 
a poisonous effect. The head attendant reported 
to the doctor in charge on his return that it made 
me drunk. It certainly put me to sleep, rested 
me and made a great improvement in my con- 
dition, as they admitted, but when it was stopped 
my pulse became very weak and thready. 

I suffered intensely, but as I asked the first 
assistant for the medicine, he was not to blame. 
His kindly courteous attention helped me and the 
medicine brought me to a condition where I 
discovered what I needed. I found that if I 
could get a trional powder every third night, I 
would improve right along. 

It must have been during the week after I 
was transferred to ward nine, the fourth week 
after I was taken to the hospital and could not 
sleep on that ward as explained, that I was taken 
back to ward ten. Nothing was said to me as to 



139 

what they were going to do to me, nothing is ever 

explained to the patient. The doctor in charge 

and attendant were taking me into ward ten. 

They got me as far as the entrance to ward twelve 

when I was struck with terror. I screamed, threw 

up my hands as high as I could reach and cried, 

"Oh, my God!" then dropped my hands beside 

me and said to the doctor, "See, I am quiet." I 

did this six times. The ends of my fingers were 

chilled through and my blood seemed to run cold. 

Mr. P., a patient, came running to me and threw 

his arms about me as tightly as he could, but he 

could not save me. Then I cried: "Surely you 

would not murder me after my brother being here 

Sunday." The attendant took me to my old 

room and the doctor wanted to know what was 

the matter with me and asked: "Have I not 

been always honest and truthful with you?" I 

replied that it was the horror of it. He may have 

offered me a powder, for I recollect him going for 

his syringe and when he returned, he wanted to 

know which I would take, the powder or the 

hypodermic. That meant, refuse the powder 

and you will get the hypodermic, whether you 

want it or not, with the awful dryness of the 

throat and the terrible and lasting dilation of the 

pupil. I said I would take the powder, and he 

wanted to know why I made him go for the 

syringe. I could not answer. From that night 

it must have been evident to the doctor that I did 

not need another hypodermic, and I told: him long 

afterwards that if he had been a true Masonic 

brother, when I called upon God as I did, he 

would have come to mv relief and not have been 



140 
so harsh with me. I also told him that he ought 
to be able to understand that God was showing 
him that I should have the powder and not the 
hypodermic. 

I am not sure that a patient ever needs the 
harsh hypodermic* even during the initial excite- 
ment, but I am satisfied that once the patient 
is quieted down, a milder sedative is all that is 
required. It w T as some months before I knew 
positively that the powders I was receiving w r ere 
trional, but I recognized it by its appearance, 
and was able to distinguish it from other powders 
on the ward when the night attendant offered me 
one from a collection in his drawer. If a sedative 
is required for a length of time it is better to change 
from one to another; bromide of soda, Squibb's 
ergot, and other things will produce sleep, and the 
ergot is very helpful if there is noise in the ears, 
or trouble with the heart. 



FEEDING. 

Sometimes patients refuse to eat and they are 
fed,somedonot refuse to eat and are fed, while others 
refuse to eat and are not fed. I have known 
patients to go for days without eating and the 
attendants pay no attention to them. Frequently 
a patient would be noticed not eating and an 
attendant would induce him to take a glass of milk 
or a few swallows of tea. I have seen attendants 
feed a patient they nicknamed "the pig," although 
he would eat. This attendant would take a 
handful of a mixture that resembled and tasted 



141 
like dressing for fowl, and plug handful after 
handful into the patient's mouth, and the patient 
would manage to swallow it. 

The greatest suffering I endured was when 
being fed. Just after admission to the hospital 
the doctor in charge came into my room and 
inserting a rubber tube through my nose placed 
a funnel on the end of it and poured eggnog into 
my stomach until it was full. I shall never forget 
the way that tube, soft as it was, seemed to grind 
its way down my oesophagus. But it was not 
simply inserting the tube and pouring in the food 
that was so agonizing — that was done as scientific- 
ally as possible. After I w T as fed, the food would 
not stay down, and two attendants, with a towel 
and their four great hands over my face, holding 
my nose and mouth, almost strangled me to death. 
The doctor stood beside the bed and permitted 
this. A man who will look on and allow such a 
proceeding is inhuman. This was done twice. 

Feeding with a soft rubber tube through the 
nose, as a rule, is not dangerous or torturing- 
When I was first fed the muscles all over my body 
were tense, and the muscles of my throat were 
just as rigid as those of the rest of my body. 

After I had been in the hospital for a few- 
weeks and was greatly improved, though in bed, 
my supper was brought to me one Sunday evening. 
I ate a fairly good meal, but could not finish all 
there was on the tray Attendant R., who was 
on duty, came into my room and ordered me to 
eat everything or he would feed me. I could not 
eat another bite. Presently he brought in the 
doctor in charge with the same tube and funnel 



142 
and the old blue pitcher of milk punch. The 
doctor never asked me if I had eaten anything, 
never asked me if I would drink the eggnog, but 
just inserted the tube and poured in the liquid. 
When I was full up to the throat I motioned to 
him to stop and he did. I suppose he noticed 
how little it required to fill my stomach, and after 
he was outside the door of my room I heard him 
ask Paddy if I had eaten my supper, and he said 
that I had. Another attendant who sat on the 
bed holding me remarked that I was the easiest 
patient to feed he ever saw. 

When I was a junior assistant in the New York 
City Hospital. I was instructed to feed patients 
with a brass pump and a hard rubber tube. It 
was necessary to pry the mouth open with a screw 
wedge made out of oak. We then inserted the 
tube through the mouth into the stomach and 
pumped the eggnog into the patient. It seemed 
to me as if a human being's stomach would need 
to be lined with zinc to stand such treatment. A 
patient I was feeding died a few days later. I held 
an autopsy and found, as I expected, a great raw, 
ulcerated spot in the lining of the stomach where 
the tube had been rubbing while feeding. There 
was no necessity for sticking the tube into the 
stomach as had been done. I kneAY that a soft 
tube used through the nose was better, and 
although the hospital supplied no such tube I 
procured a large soft rubber catheter and a 
funnel for future feedings. 

In mv six years' experience I never fed a 
patient until I had tried to induce him to take it 
himself. Sometimes patients would tell me I did 



143 
not need to tie or have their hands held, and I 
would feed them as they preferred. I have been 
with other doctors in the New York City Hospital 
when feeding patients and they never tried to 
induce them to drink. On one occasion I was 
with a physician who was about to feed a patient, 
who after being tied, told the doctor she would 
drink it herself. The doctor replied that she put 
him to the trouble of Wing her in the chair and 
he was going to feed her. In five minutes the 
patient was dead. He overloaded her stomach 
and stopped a weak heart. 



PAROLE. 



After a patient has been in the hospital a 
length of time, and when those in charge have 
become acquainted with him, he may be allowed 
more or less freedom. If on the disturbed ward, 
he may be given the privilege of smoking or spend- 
ing the day on the quieter ward nine, or he may be 
allowed to enjoy the billiard room on ward eleven 
or be given a parole to walk about the grounds. 
It was quite evident that no great effort was made 
to become acquainted with the patient. Several 
patients said to me. "I wonder what they think 
I would do if I were allowed about the grounds." 
I vised to find myself wondering at times if I really 
would not have the sense to do what was right if 
I were allowed a parole. It was particularly 
noticeable that if a man had been there before, 
and if they had become familiar with his psychic 
condition, and if he had formerly been allowed a 



144 
parole, he easily dropped into all former favors. 
One patient, who had been discharged, returned 
while I was there and was allowed full parole in 
four days. If he had not been in the hospital 
previously,' he could not have gained such a 
privilege in so short a time, although he was a 
young man of wealth and with friends of great 
political influence. Other readmissions were allow- 
ed a parole about the grounds and were even per- 
mitted to visit their homes on Sunday, although 
there was no apparent improvement in their 
mental condition. They simply knew how to take 
care of themselves, would not cause any disturb- 
ance, and were respectably dressed. Of course 
it depended upon the friends whether they visited 
the city or not, to a large extent. I knew of one 
patient with very light epilepsy who could have 
had permission to visit his home on Sunday 
frequently, but his wife objected to his visits. 
Another patient would have been allowed to visit 
his home in the city if his friends had called for 
him, but he said that although he had seven 
brothers and two sisters they did not take enough 
interest in him to come for him. Perhaps if his 
relatives had requested the assistant physician 
to allow him to go alone, they might not have 
objected to his visits home. No one can under- 
stand the psychic condition of the patient as well 
as a relative or friend in whom the patient has the 
utmost confidence, so that it is well for the patient 
if he has such a relative or friend to intercede for 
him with the medical authorities and attendants. 
There was such a conflict of authority between 
attendants and doctors to the annovance and 



145 
injury of the patients. The doctors granted per- 
mission and the attendants refused to comply 
with their orders, so that one never knew just what 
to expect. I was told soon after admission by the 
head attendant of ward eleven, which was so quiet 
and pleasant during the daytime, that I might 
come down to his ward any time I wished. It 
was my impression that the doctor gave all such 
permission, for patients talked about parole cards 
signed by him, and as the attendants were always 
fooling the patients, I told the, doctor what the 
attendant said. He replied that the attendant 
had no authority to allow me on his ward. 

As time passed I became more familiar with 
the way things were done, and after a visit from 
a friend, who requested the same head attendant 
to allow me any little privileges he could, he again 
offered to pass me through the door to his ward 
at any time he was there after meals. It is needless 
to say I did not let the doctor know about that 
offer. I was passed to the ward and, although 
the doctor saw me there, he never made any 
objection. As soon as the first assistant returned 
from his vacation I asked him, as the superinten- 
dent directed, to transfer me to this ward. He 
did so and I had the privilege of walking about the 
grounds, but was denied this privilege when trans- 
ferred to twenty-eight and under the second 
assistant physician's control. 

One man had recurrent attacks when he 
apparently did not know anything, and would 
even have to be fed. Then he would brighten up 
and was allowed to take his own parole, go to the 
city, visit the parks, and attend the downtown 



146 
ball games. Some of the patients on ward nine 
had keys that opened the door of a side entrance 
to ward eleven. They would go down themselves 
and the attendants on the ward would allow them 
to pass out doors and they could visit the city if 
they wished. 

During the first few weeks it did not matter 
to me where they put me. The attendant of ward 
nine would say, if you do not do this, or if you do 
that, you will be sent back to ward ten. But I 
was in a little heaven of my own, and knew I was 
getting well, so that it made no difference what 
they did with me. But after I was there a few 
months, and found it was necessary to remain after 
I was cured of the habit, the confinement was 
simply indescribable, especially as there was not a 
space, however small, where one could be alone or 
with a sane man for a single moment. Other 
patients used to talk to me of the awful feeling 
that would come over them, locked up they knew 
not for how long, and for no crime or reason they 
could understand. That feeling of restraint for 
no sufficient reason was simply overpowering at 
times. Several patients said they would prefer 
to be in the penitentiary, where they would know 
definitely how long they would be confined, and 
where they would enjoy a little outdoor life during 
imprisonment. I know it is not possible to tell a 
patient just how long he will have to stay, but 
some little word of encouragement can certainly 
be given a man who is improving, and a trial can 
be allowed him once more in life when he has 
apparently recovered. 

In my own case I had no reason to feel that 



147 
I would ever be paroled or ever be allowed to go 
out in the world again. Because I wanted to 
learn something of the way in which things were 
done, I asked a patient who had been there before, 
how he got home the first time, and he said he told 
his people he would kill himself if they did not take 
him out, and they took him home. I asked this 
patient also, since he had enjoyed all kinds of 
privileges, how he secured them and he told me: 
"You just have to beg," meaning that you would 
just have to persistently ask the doctor until he 
allowed you the privilege you desired. 

Attendants sometimes left because the con- 
finement was more than they could endure. Mr. 
P. told me that money would not hire him to 
remain all day on the ward, that it was as much 
as he could stand to relieve the regular attendant 
a while in the evening after his carpenter w r ork was 
done. 

After we were transferred to the new hospital, 
where there were wired balconies to which we had 
access, it was not so distressful, for we had plenty 
of fresh air and sunlight, with space in which to 
move about or be alone if we wished. But it soon 
became torturing even there. The attendants 
would allow patients in certain sections only. 
New, uneasy and excited patients came in, and no 
matter where you sat, inside the ward or on the 
balcony, some one was continually walking back 
and forth near you. In the section where we had 
a billiard table patients played incessantly , and 
from the balconies squirted streams of tobacco 
juice through the wire grating on to the piazza 
steps below, 



148 

It was not my misfortune to be compelled 
to endure the agony of these things long, for I was 
soon transferred to the open ward, which means 
a ward where the patients look after themselves, 
where the outside doors are never locked during 
the day, and the grounds are not fenced in. 
During the last two months I lived in the woods 
and about the grounds, visiting the parks and golf 
links, remaining inside at night and for meals — 
the only restraint being the doctor's order not to 
go to the city. 

The parole is a most important feature in the 
treatment of any case. It enables those in 
authority to observe what sort of grip you have 
upon yourself. To be allowed down town alone 
or with friends enables you to get in touch with 
natural life again. Living inside so much I seemed 
to notice the things above me mostly, the bright 
blue sky, the beautiful clouds, the moon and the 
stars with all the grandeur of the heavens. It was 
a great relief (since I had to live on the earth) to 
get down into the city with its bustle and excite- 
ment. 

During my wife's last visit before I was 
discharged she was given full authority over me 
by the doctor in charge. As it was a long ride 
to the city, she allowed me to go back and forth 
alone. The day before she left I remained down 
town for lunch and dinner, but was back before 
the door on the open ward was locked. The doctor 
came in in a rage and wanted to know where I had 
been. I told him, and also that I returned alone. 
He said patients were not allowed to go to the city 
or return by themselves. I explained to him, for 



149 

he must have forgotten, that he had given my 
wife full authority to do with me as she wished, 
and that we had seen other patients alone in the 
city. He then said he wanted me to understand 
that his patients did not go to the city. If, there- 
fore, you were under the care of one assistant 
physician, you would be allowed greater privileges 
than you would be allowed under another, while 
the attendants could allow you to enjoy the 
privileges the doctors granted or not as they 
pleased. 

It would be just as impossible for any sane 
man to understand the way the hospital was 
managed, because nothing was ever explained 
to the patient nor any reason ever given for a 
thing being done. One case will illustrate. A 
patient, Mr. P., had been on full parole. We 
had been to the parks attending the band 
concerts, and also to the city together. His 
mother lived in one town and his wife in an- 
other not far distant. He was given permis- 
sion to visit his mother, and after visiting her, 
he decided to pay a visit to his wife, and at 
once returned to the hospital. When he came 
back his parole was taken from him entirely. 
He told me he could not understand it, that he 
had not tasted a drop of liquor and had behaved 
himself, and then to be shut up completely was 
more than he could comprehend. He said he 
would write the President about the matter, but 
let any man tell me how or where he could write 
and receive justice. 

What is needed is to explain the situation to 
patients. Where there was no system, but every 



150 
doctor and attendant doing as he thought best, 
if each one would explain what they expected of 
the patient he might be able to understand. You 
saw other patients doing things, and yet if you did 
the very same things, you would be censured for it 
or made to suffer by having your liberty taken 
from you. 

There was a portion of ground fenced in 
where the women could enjoy an outing, but no 
such place was provided for men. I used to long 
to be transferred to the London, Canada, Asylum, 
where a whole farm of three hundred acres is 
fenced in, and imagined they allowed patients 
greater freedom, but that delusion has been 
dispelled. Yet I am satisfied it is a great help to a 
man to get on his feet, and to test the grip he has 
on himself, to be where there is no barrier and 
only his self-control to restrain him. 

I see no reason why a patient should not enjoy 
the concerts in the parks as several, both men and 
women, did, so long as a patient is respectably 
dressed, looks natural and acts in a rational manner. 
I feel sure also that if, instead of discharging one 
young man who could not remain out without 
getting intoxicated, they had simply given him a 
parole to the city for a certain time each day, and 
had insisted upon his living up to orders, he would 
have been able to get a grip on himself and be a 
man once more. 



151 



WALKING. 

The first time I was allowed a walk out of 
doors I was taken out alone. I had heard the 
doctor direct the head attendant of ward nine to 
take me out the first fine day. Although it had 
been raining the next morning was clear and 
pleasant. When the attendant was ready he 
called to me to come, and snarled out in an ugly 
tone (attendants usually yell and snarl at patients 
when they ask them to do anything) that he was 
busy and to hurry* as he had no time to wait. He 
took me down the side entrance by a winding stair 
into the basement. It was certainly an awful 
experience for, while I had been told I was to go 
for a walk, everybody in authority lies so to the 
patients that when I reached the basement I 
felt sure I was to be left in that dark, cold dungeon, 
but when I reached the outside door I began to 
feel easy. 

Although bright, it was a chill November day, 
but the attendant said I would not need my overcoat . 
I had on thin underclothes and light slippers, and 
as part of the walk was cement and part damp 
and muddy, I felt disagreeable and chilly. I was 
in a very weak and debilitated condition. This 
was only the third or fourth week after my admis- 
sion, and the doctors had told my relatives that I 
would die in ten or twelve days. I had lost 
twenty-five or thirty pounds of flesh, and even 
when inside it was necessary for me to stand by 
the fire all the time to keep warm. 

A few days later the head attendant of hall 
nine took me for a second walk. Although my 



152 
own overcoat with my name on hung in the same 
basement, I was given the most ragged and faded 
old brown garment I ever saw r . We walked as far 
as the woods and back, then he said that we would 
go through the new buildings. We went up to 
the entrance of the Genessee building, but the 
door being locked, we went back to the walk and 
around to the long hall that leads to all the 
buildings. 

We entered one of the rooms. The attendant 
commented on the floor, saying it was not so good 
as the floor in the old building, and that the base- 
board was a very poor looking fix. He seemed 
annoyed because I did not reply to his remarks, 
but up to that time I had not been saying any- 
thing indoors or out. At length I ventured the 
reply that the floor was Southern pine, the material 
mostly used for flooring now. I was very tired, 
and he must have noticed it, for he asked me if I 
was. When I replied, he said he guessed I could 
stand it, and took me through the whole establish- 
ment. It was just before election and every kind 
of work was being done. Although he did not 
know one among the workmen, he took me up 
to the electricians, plumbers, carpenters and 
cement workers and said to each: "This is Dr. 

." He had adverse comments to make 

about everything. The kitchen floor was so 
rough; the screens, that is the heavy wire guards 
to prevent patients from getting out, were on the 
outside and so frail. The reader may have some 
idea of the effort it required to go through the 
whole building when this same attendant, after 
the building was occupied, made the remark that 



153 
a man would need a bicycle to go through the long 
hall alone. I was almost exhausted, and by the 
time we reached the ward in the old building was 
just able to stand. These were the only two 
occasions I was taken out alone. 

The only opportunity patients have of receiv- 
ing fresh air, sunshine and exercise is when taken 
out for a walk, and many of those who are able 
to go out are never even allowed the privilege. 
During the winter these walks occurred probably 
twice a week, and lasted from fifteen minutes to 
half an hour, according to the length of sidewalk 
cleared of snow, which was never further than 
the barn. In the summer time, we were not taken 
out as often as in winter, even during the most 
delightful weather. Including as outings the 
times we were taken to pick peas and berries, to 
the baseball games and to the races, which only a 
few were allowed to attend, they would not average 
twice a week during the months from April to 
November. Four or five times during the summer 
we were taken out and allowed to sit in the shade 
of the woods or under the trees which formed a 
grove and in which were a few seats. These 
outings were to me a delight both winter and 
summer. Never in my life did I enjoy anything 
more than wading through the snow, for we were 
not always made to keep on the walk, in a bluster- 
ing snow storm, wearing a pair of rubber boots, a 
warm overcoat and mittens ; while in the summer 
time lounging about on the grass often afforded 
me a little sleep, of which I was so badly in need. 
These gifts of nature would have been enjoyed 
still more had it not been for the nasty talk of 



154 
the attendants, to which we were compelled to 
listen. 

I asked the attendant in charge of ward 
fifty -three if he took his patients out for a walk, 
and he said he did not wish to take the chances. 
The only exercise patients had in the open air was 
these walks, as there were no balconies on the old 
hospital nor on the greater part of the new. Dur- 
ing my stay and for months previous, there were 
many patients who were never out of doors, except 
while being changed from the old hospital to the 
new. 



WORK. 



Everybody, from the superintendent down, 
will tell you that work is the cure for mental 
disease. Even from those who have had no con- 
nection with the care of this class of patients, I 
have heard that work is what does them good. 

Nothing could be further from the truth than 
to say that a patient is put to work for his benefit. 
There is much work which must be done, and 
irrespective of the patient's mental or physical 
condition, he must do it if he can be induced to 
work by threats, bribed by tobacco or nagged into 
it. There has been a great deal written about the 
bondage of the Children of Israel and the treatment 
of the colored race before slavery was abolished, 
but these were rational beings and able to under- 
stand, but think of a man knocked down twice 
and kicked because he did not hoe his row, a man 
incapable of understanding why he was pounded 



155 
and kicked. A patient came into the ward one 
night with hands all cracked and bleeding from 
working in the soap factory, and showed them to 
me. I advised him to tell the attendant and 
remain on the ward for the doctor to treat. The 
next night I asked him if he saw the doctor and 
he said he had not, but that the man in charge 
of the soap factory had given him a box of citron- 
ilia oil. I also heard a man with raw and bleeding 
hands dressed with ointment and bandages, told 
that he must scrub or go to bed. The attendant 
knew he had a horror of being put to bed. The 
bandages were removed and when the work was 
completed were replaced. 

In the winter time there is soap to make, coal 
to heave, snow to shovel, ice to cut and draw and 
in the summer time there is the farm and garden 
work, while all the year round there are the cows, 
hens, horses and pigs to look after; tailoring, 
shoemaking, plumbing, mattress and pillow making 
to be done, besides the work in the kitchen, laundry 
and carpenter shop, and the work on the ward, 
polishing the floors, scrubbing, sweeping, bed- 
making, etc. If a man had learned the trade of 
tailoring, carpentering, shoemaking, or was used 
to handling horses or doing any definite work, 
and was in a condition to follow his trade, he would 
work the same as he would in a regular shop, but 
to take the men out, treat them kindly, teach 
them rationally and try to induce them to do some 
light work, there was no such thing ever done. 

There was certainly no system about putting 
men to work. The head attendant of ward nine 
insisted that I go to w r ork, although I was hardly 



156 
able to stand up. The idea of allowing such an 
ignorant man to possess such authority is pre- 
posterous. Men were taken out to pick peas and 
berries in the broiling sun, who with the exception 
of a few occasions were always kept indoors. 

In my own case, the first assistant, because I 
explained to him that I was tired of the ward, 
asked me if I would like to work in the dining- 
room and music hall. It was a great relief to 
have ever so little freedom and be away from the 
crowded ward, but the attendant, who knew me 
best and was always honest with me, felt satisfied 
that the work of sweeping, which I preferred, was 
too much for me. However, without reporting to 
the doctor or giving me any reason, I was placed 
back on the ward and not allowed to work. If I 
were obliged to remain in such a place and were 
able, I would start out in the spring or cool weather 
and adapt myself to outside work. Those in 
charge are willing to use tailors, shoemakers, 
musicians, and men of all trades and professions, 
but not a doctor. Nothing is more certain than 
that the doctors did not want to know about the 
care, treatment and condition of patients, and 
were too lazy or too indifferent to do things when 
they did know. 

When we were transferred to the new building, 
the doctor in charge was running things to suit 
himself. I was told one day by an attendant that 
the doctor instructed him to take me out with 
the working party, and I went. Several of the 
more recent cases were taken to a pile of stones 
near a washout and were expected to fill in the 
hole with stones, many of them as much as a 



157 
strong man could lift. I certainly was not going 
to lose what I had gained by my own care and 
treatment of myself, and as we were out with a 
decent attendant I went and lay down in the 
shade. In a few minutes one of the patients 
became so excited we all had to be taken in. I 
met the doctor and told him that the hot sun seem- 
ed to have a most exciting effect upon that patient 
and the attendant told him he could not manage 
him. As I was on a w T ard where we had balconies 
caged in with wire, where we would get fresh air, 
I concluded not to go out with the working party 
again. 

Men were made to work who were utterly 
unfit physically. I have seen epileptics doing 
work that they should not have been required to 
do. One, formerly a preacher, was working in the 
harvest and fell in fits in the barn, and another 
working in the laundry fell against the steam pipes 
and received a terrible burn about a foot long and 
three inches wide. If this had happened in the 
city he could have secured damages on account of 
violation of the Factories Act. I knew two pati- 
ents in the laundry who were physically unfit for 
their work. One of these was examined before the 
inspector came and was taken to ward twelve when 
he visited the hospital. I guessed that the duty 
of the inspector was to look after such men, but it 
was a mere guess and I never tried to find out 
what his duties were. 

It was a surprise to me to see some patients 
have entire control of their work. A mulatto 
looked after the cleaning of the dormitory in ward 
ten and carried the only key to the hot water tap 



158 

of the sink. He would lock off the hot water 
from both wards nine and ten. He was a worker 
and every day mopped the whole dormitory, which 
contained between fifty and sixt}^ beds. Another 
patient had a key which admitted him to the 
storeroom. He went in and came out as he wished, 
he sorted all the private clothes and handed out 
both private and state supplies on bathing day, 
and never seemed to make an error. Those who 
had keys would under no circumstances allow any 
other patient to pass through a door w T ith them 
or use the hot water. Another patient cleaned 
and pressed the attendants' clothes in the store- 
room and he did them well. The door of the bath- 
room was left unlocked at bedtime, and a patient 
without anyone to look after him cleaned the bath 
and toilet rooms of both sides. One old patient 
looked after the steam boilers in the kitchen off 
the diningroom, saw to changing the tablecloths 
and ran things generally about the diningroom. 
Occasionally this patient was absent and the 
diningroom attendant was actually unable to 
properly operate the steam without him. Another 
patient did all the repairing of the willow T work 
on the chairs and settees, while another took care 
of the hennery. I might continue the list, for no 
doubt there were others doing work about the 
stables and barns and other places in a similar 
manner. When I say the patient did these things 
I mean that he was given the work to do, and 
henceforth he did it himself and did it well without 
anyone overseeing him. Patients soon learned to 
do as the attendant directed if they would work at 
all, and there was no trouble, but patients usually 



159 
resisted any attempt at being ordered by other 
patients. The fact that patients had direction 
over the work in certain places made it very 
distasteful to other patients. In the diningroom 
to have a cranky old patient ordering others around 
and becoming excited when they refused to obey 
was far from the ideal way of conducting work. 

I am not trying to argue that work — employ- 
ment — is not a good thing in the treatment of the 
mind, but what I say is that irrespective of the 
effects, some patients are put to work, while others 
are never even allowed an opportunity of employ- 
ing 'themselves. 



NOISE. 

Many patients suffer intensely from the noise. 
The noise during the day was as disturbing at 
times as it was at night. Patients locked in their 
rooms called to be let out and pounded on the 
door. The incessant loud talking and walking of 
some patients was as distressing to the attendants 
as to the patients, but the loud talk of the attend- 
ants themselves was as annoying as that of the 
patients. One of the most vicious attacks made 
upon a patient by an attendant was the choking 
of the patient to try to make him stop talking. 
In ward nine the very sight of Vane H., a patient 
who worked outside during the day, coming into 
the ward filled one with horror on account of his 
incessant talking in a peculiar unnatural and 
excessively loud tone of voice. The walking 
across the floor with the black squeaking slippers 



160 

and heavy shoes would work some attendants up 
to a pitch. The creaking hinges on the doors 
were simply fierce. I saw the day supervisor oil 
the hinges on the door leading to the washroom, 
and the creaking must have been intense to 
attract his attention the few seconds he was on 
the ward, but there were eight or ten other sets 
of hinges never oiled since the building was erected. 
The slamming of doors was deafening, and attend- 
ants trying to learn to play on the bones and the 
drumming on the piano of those who were unable 
to play was nerve-racking. When a patient 
asked the doctor in charge for some cotton to put 
in his ears to keep out the noise he replied: "There 
is no noise here." 

Many of us were out of harmony with our 
surroundings, for of all the talk we ever listened 
to nothing equalled in vileness the language that' 
v/as used by attendants. Men who professed to 
be members of churches, men who knelt in prayer 
' in church, would leave the church and outdo 
Billingsgate. 

I have referred to the various disturbing 
noises under the head of "Sleep." These noises 
were as disturbing to many others as to myself. 
Mr. C. constantly complained of the thumping of 
the engine, which was run to produce the electric 
light, keeping him awake all night. He said he 
occupied my room one night after I was transferred, 
and slept much better, although he did not like 
the idea of being in room " 13". 

The clicking of the billiard balls kept patients 
awake often until midnight, especially one man 
who was called to work at four in the morning. 



161 
The disturbance created by the constant line of 
patients using the toilet room of ward nine kept 
patients awake in the rooms below also. 

Such a thing as trying to make conditions 
helpful to the patients never seemed to enter the 
minds of any one in authority. Frequent public 
dances were given in the music hall, and kept up 
until after midnight. The revelry could be heard 
by many patients, and one of the hardest nights I 
put in in the hospital was one during which a dance 
was going on. An automobile was left standing 
just below my window, and the engine allowed to 
run most of the time until one a.m. 



SLEEP. 

Had the attendant who said: "It is the beds 
that count," said: "It is sleep that counts," he 
would have made a most important, if not the 
most important, statement of the patient's need. 
Only a man who has been awake day and night 
for days at a time can have any idea of the awful - 
ness of the condition. The agony is beyond 
description. To lie awake all night, be ordered 
up in the morning, your door locked, to endure 
the incessant racket and retire again to lie awake 
another night, and so on, until you do not know 
just what does happen, is suffering to the limit. 

Numerous patients complained to me of being 
unable to sleep, some for a night, one for five nights, 
and one for six weeks. Suffering as I did from 
lack of sleep, it was torturing to see others wander- 
ing around night after night, and to listen to them 



162 
tell of how they suffered without sleep. Mr. H., 
the son of a professor at Colgate, was an especially 
painful case to me. We were friends and talked 
together, and it was impossible not to learn of 
how he suffered from want of sleep. I explained 
to him it was no use to tell me his trouble as I had 
no remedies and could not secure a hot bath for 
him as I did for myself. I did explain to him 
that the thing to do was to keep after the doctor 
and not let him know I suggested it. I told him 
he would certainly lose his mind if he did not sleep . 
Just imagine a man losing his mind in an insane 
asylum, but that is what actually occurs. This 
patient, as well as two or three others, received 
sleeping doses after I suggested to them to tell 
the doctor. The patient who went five days 
without sleep told me that they gave him stuff 
to produce sleep which stupefied him, but did not 
"put him to sleep, and he worked every day digging 
in the trench which was being opened up for a 
conduit. 

Three times the doctor in charge asked me 
why I could not sleep when I begged him for 
treatment. I have already referred to the disturb- 
ance caused by the night supervisor and night and 
day attendants, but it is so important I feel that 
it cannot be dwelt upon too often. The first night 
I was unable to sleep was after being transferred 
to ward nine. My room was opposite the small 
toilet-room with a single hopper and no urinal, 
and was used from the time patients retired until 
five in the morning, by one hundred and seventeen 
patients. A patient in the room next to me kept 
up a drumming noise until morning. The light 



163 
from the street threw a shadow of the ropes on the 
flag pole on the wall and the waving shadows 
disturbed me, as well as the light. The first night 
I did not have enough clothes on the bed to keep 
me warm. The next morning when the first 
assistant physician made his rounds I was asked 
the only question, in the whole eleven months, as 
a doctor should ask a patient: "How did you 
sleep?" At that time I did not know him, and I 
was so afraid of everybody because of the harsh 
manner in which I was treated by others, that I 
simply managed to say that I did not sleep well 
on account of the toilet room. He promised to 
change my room as soon as he could. I remained 
in the same room that night, and the carpenter, 
who was relieving the attendant, brought more 
blankets when I told him I was cold. 

When I was changed to a room off the sitting- 
room, I was unable to sleep because of the lights. 
My door was ordered to be left open and the 
flapping of the curtain by the wind was annoying. 
The night attendant and night supervisor played 
cards all night, talking loudly, smoking and 
drinking. My room was next the office on the 
ward and the attendant made frequent trips to 
the chiffonier where the bottle was kept. Twice 
the attendant woke me up fumbling around in my 
wardrobe. What he wanted there was more 
than I could guess. There was only a white coat 
besides my clothes, and I asked him to please take 
it out, but he said it was not his and he would not 
bother me another morning. Once he woke me up 
playing the piano before five a. m. The noise 
from slamming the doors and calling the working 



164 
patients was most distressing. I was transferred 
to ward ten and was able to see for myself that, 
although ward ten was the disturbed ward, I 
could get more rest there. The first time the 
doctor in charge asked me why I could not sleep, 
I told him there was such a noise above me. He 
insisted there was nothing in the attic, but I 
explained that I had seen the light there and could 
not be mistaken about the rumbling sounds made 
by someone interfering with the galvanized iron 
air flues. He then asked the day supervisor about 
it, and he said it was the engineer who went up 
there at two a.m. In hall ten we all retired at 
eight p.m., but the day attendants were on duty 
until nine. Several times I have gone to sleep 
to be wakened up by the loud talk and disturbance 
created by the three day attendants on duty. 
Sometimes I would get to sleep and the night 
supervisor coming into my room would waken me. 
I have no recollection of sleeping a whole night 
through until I reached the open ward, the last 
month of my stay, because of being wakened by 
the night attendant coming into my room, and 
this occurred at times even on the open ward. 
The room in which I slept was never dark, and 
when the night attendant of ward ten came on 
duty he turned on the light which shone directly 
into my room. He sat just outside my door or 
in the office beside my room, and if there was any 
talking in the dormitor}^, which was across the 
sitting-room and through a hall fifty or sixty feet 
away, he would yell out in his drawling tone to the 
patients to keep quiet. The second time the 
doctor asked me why I could not sleep I told him 



165 

the ward was so noisy. It was the disturbed ward 
and patients locked in their rooms pounded on the 
doors and called to be let out to no purpose, and 
the racket kept me awake. The doctor answered 
that he slept under the noise. 

In the new hospital we retired an hour before 
the night attendants came on duty. When the 
night attendant came he would drag the desk 
forty or fifty feet from the dormitory into the hall 
opposite my door. He sat in a poorly-made office 
chair and would rock back and forth, the castors 
making a constant creaking sound. He smoked 
ten to a dozen cigarettes, the stubs of which I 
have often counted, and nothing kept me awake 
or would awaken me if sleeping more quickly 
than tobacco smoke. The third time the doctor 
asked me why I could not sleep was the night 
after a patient died. During the two months we 
occupied the new part, the attendants were unable 
to become familiar with the switch board. There 
was a board in each section with six or eight keys. 
A silver plate with letters stamped in it told which 
parts were lighted by the several keys, but at 
night they could not see the letters and would snap 
several of the lights off and on before they would 
get the right one. The night the patient died on 
the ward the attendant turned on the lights about 
midnight. As a whole set of rooms were lighted 
by one key, it was necessary to have all the rooms 
lighted on that line in order to allow a light in the 
dying patient's room. His sister was with him 
and after midnight the priest came to administer 
the last sacrament. After he died, about two a.m. f 



166 
they brought patients and another attendant to 
lay him out and carry his body to the morgue. 

On the open ward, while each man had a 
room, the opening above the door was so large it 
was the same as sleeping in a dormitory. The 
building was put up on the factory plan and a 
single board floor separated us from the patients 
above. The pounding of the billiard cues and 
the clicking of the balls continued for an hour 
and a half to two hours after the time for retiring. 
The patient above my regular room had hay fever 
and coughed until midnight and snored the rest 
of the night after he would get to sleep. Patients 
who had been in ward eleven and accustomed to 
retiring as they chose, some going to bed at 5.30 
p.m., would get up in the morning and make their 
iron beds at 4 a.m. While I had a room assigned 
me on the open ward, the rooms were not all 
occupied, and by changing I was able to get where 
it was quiet enough to sleep. 

There is certainly no place sufficiently quiet 
to treat a nervous patient, and I am quite certain 
that sane men whom I know could not retain their 
minds in the place if compelled to remain there 
continuouslv. 



THE BEDS. 

"It is the beds that count." 

This remark was made by a head attendant 
who had been fifteen years in the service of the 
hospital, the oldest and most experienced attendant 
in the place. 



167 

The first and all-important consideration was 
the appearance of the beds. It made no difference 
about the care of the patients even if their clothes 
were in the filthiest condition. It mattered not 
about their physical or mental condition, whether 
they were properly looked after or not. I have 
known patients whose nails were neither cleaned 
nor cut for months at a time. I myself, when 
physician at the New York City Hospital, removed 
a nail from a woman's toe two inches long and 
half an inch thick, which must have been growing 
there for years, until it resembled a goat's horn. 
It made no difference wmether a report of the 
patients' condition was made to the doctor or not ; 
if the beds looked all right, the attendant need 
not worry. 

Three years of my life were spent in Wood- 
stock College, where the students were obliged to 
do their own room work. Seven years of my life 
were spent as physician in hospitals where I was 
supposed to know whether the beds were properly 
made or not, and yet it seemed as if I knew nothing 
of the mysteries of bed-making, for I was instructed 
in six different ways how to make my bed. In this 
as in everything else the institution lacked a head. 
Every attendant had his own way of doing things. 

Nearly every patient had a single iron bed- 
stead with an easy woven wire spring, a hair 
mattress and pillow, comfortable blankets and 
clean sheets and pillow cases. It is not my purpose 
to try to detract one iota from the beds. From 
the first moment I was able to appreciate my sur- 
roundings I was grateful for the clean, easy bed. 

My mind continually reverted to the oldest 



168 
building in the group of the New York City Hos- 
pital, with its board partitions and half an inch of 
space between the boards, a breeding place for 
bedbugs. When physician on that service I have 
seen on a warm night the bugs so thick that you 
could not draw a circle a yard in diameter on the 
floor, walls or ceiling of any room, that did not 
include within its circumference from one to a dozen 
bugs. Every conceivable method was tried to 
destroy those bugs, but without success. Before 
resigning the service, however, I had the satis- 
faction of seeing the building torn down. 

But this is not what the attendant referred to 
when he remarked that: "It is the beds that 
count." He referred merely to their outward 
appearance. If the beds looked all right after 
they were made up, that was the important con- 
sideration in the minds of all those in authority, 
from attendant to commissioner. It was natural 
for me, being a physician, to suppose the thing 
that counted would be that which tended to 
restore the patient to his normal, healthy con- 
dition. I certainly could have secured better 
sleep on the hay in the barn or under a tree in the 
pleasant summer weather, away from the noise, 
lights and ruddlerang. But that which was best 
for the patient never seemed to enter the mind of 
anyone in authority. 



BATHS. 



Patients were given a spray bath once a week. 
It was always a pleasure to have bathing day 
come around after I was well enough to bathe 



169 

myself. With the temperature of the water to 
your liking, an ordinary scrub brush and a cake 
of the excellent soap made in the hospital factory, 
it was an easy matter to keep the whole body clean. 
There were plenty of clean towels and everybody 
was given a change of clothes. If vou did not 
have your own the State provided them. 

If a patient would not undress hrmself he w T as 
kicked or punched to urge him on, while those 
utterly incapable of attending to themselves were 
undressed and dressed by another patient. There 
was no opportunity like the bath for the doctor 
to see his patients, but only once in the eleven 
months was there ever a doctor present while 
the bathing was in progress, and only for a few 
minutes 'at that time. The spray bath is certainly 
the ideal way of bathing patients, where three or 
four patients can bathe at once. It is not a very 
thorough bath, but it has never been possible to 
get the attendants to change the water or keep 
the tub clean where patients are bathed in a tub. 
I have seen attendants bathing themselves in the 
filthiest kind of a tub, too lazy to clean it, and that, 
too, in a tub where syphiletes with sores were 
given hot baths. 

When I was first admitted to the hospital I 
was given two or three hot baths, one attendant 
watching the thermometer and three or four 
attendants holding me in the tub. The water 
came directly from the boiler and was mixed with 
cold water as it entered the tub, and overflowed 
through the opening at the top. The attendant 
may have kept the temperature at the same point, 
but it is more than I can understand how that was 



170 
possible. The water was so hot it cooked me into 
unconsciousness, but the doctor told my friends 
that I collapsed in the hot bath. I was not in a 
condition at the time to determine whether a hot 
bath was helpful or not. It is certain that two 
or three such baths could be of little use. After I 
had been to the city and had found out my own 
condition and became so excited, and was in such 
bad shape after my return, I was given hot baths 
again. One day I was able to feel for myself the 
great good the hot bath did me. I determined 
then to submit to them without causing trouble. 
But that was not possible. The attendant no 
longer held the thermometer but allowed it to 
float on the water. He would keep me in until I 
collapsed, and I knew it was not a good thing to 
be cooked into unconsciousness every day. Once 
I was able to play possum and they took me out, 
but the next day it was so hot I could not keep 
from crying out and called for B Ian chard. At 
length he came and he knew as well as I did that 
the water was too hot, and with his upper arm 
under my chin shoved me out. He would not 
dare let the head attendant think he was taking 
me out. But that was enough for me. I deter- 
mined not to be cooked or choked any more if I 
could get out of it, and that was the last hot bath 
the attendants or doctors saw me have. I found 
out, however, what hot water would do and drank 
large quantities of it until I found that the door 
of the bathroom was unlocked every night at 
8 p.m., bedtime. I would undress and then go 
to the toilet-room and slip into the bathroom 
with the patient who was mopping the tile floor. 



171 
and as the key to the water was always on the 
faucet, I would fill the tub as hot as I could 
stand it and turn off the water. I kept these up 
for two or three months, bathing my head with 
hot water during the day also. Nobody ever 
knew of my taking them except this patient, who 
was unable to tell what happened around him. 
I never knew w T hen I might be kicked out of the 
bathroom by an attendant, but every time I got 
into the tub Cy would hang a mop with a red 
handle on the marble partition between the spray 
bath and the tub, and that was to me a sign that 
everything was all right. Strange to say, when I 
was transferred to ward eleven, and was obliged 
to use the lower bathroom, which a different 
patient kept clean, the first thing he did when I 
got into the tub was to hang a mop with a red 
handle on the partition. 

There is no question in my mind but that hot 
water is the proper treatment for mental and 
nervous ailments. A hot bath needs good food 
and plenty of it. During the time I was taking 
them every night I would get so hungry before 
morning that I used to take a lunch with me from 
the diningroom, and eat it after midnight when I 
would wake up. I noticed that one or two patients 
who were given hot baths improved rapidly, and 
asked the doctor why he did not keep them up 
with other patients. He said he only gave them 
to suitable cases. It would please me to have 
him explain now what he meant then by suitable 
cases. Surely there were patients the last nine 
months of my stay as suitable as the first two 
months. In the new hospital the tubs are on 



172 
wheels and must be filled from the tap before the 
patient enters. The water cannot, therefore, be 
run in or out while the patient is in the bath. In 
the old hospital, there was only one tub for over 
two hundred patients. 

A hot bath should have a temperature of 
110 to 112 degrees Fahrenheit, and the whole body 
should be immersed, head and all, so that the eyes 
and mouth are covered, the nostrils only being 
above the water. A hot bath was never given 
in this manner in the hospital by the doctor or 
attendants. 

I noticed that other patients found out for 
themselves that immersing the head alone in a 
basin of hot water would enable them to sleep, 
and that other patients who bathed the feet and 
other parts of the body in hot water were the ones 
who improved and managed to get home. 



CHURCH. 

In the upper story of one of the buildings was 
located the amusement hall, and in this hall on 
Sunday morning, immediately after breakfast, 
the patients were assembled for church. A 
Catholic service w T as held one Sunday and a 
Protestant service the next. The men's dining- 
room being located at the end of the hall on the 
same floor, they passed directly from the breakfast 
table into church, while the women came in from 
their own building. Part of the men were allowed 
to attend or not, according to the selection and 
whim or meanness of the attendants on duty. 



173 
While the assistant superintendent sang some- 
times in the Protestant choir, as did also one of 
the assistant physicians, no doctor or anyone else 
ever took the trouble to see that all those who 
would like to attend service and who would 
behave themselves were present or not. When 
the men were transferred to the new building, 
very few were able to get to church, and the service 
was partly through before they reached the hall. 

It would seem, from the fact that one or two 
old patients sang in both choirs, that some attempt 
had been made in former years to interest the 
patients in the services and the music, but during 
my stay there certainly was no such effort made. 
No hymn books, Bibles or prayer books were 
provided for the patients, although some of the 
Catholics had prayer books of their own. The 
music was furnished by a piano and a choir made 
up of male and female attendants, with the one 
or two old patients already referred to. There were 
two choirs, one Protestant and one Catholic, 
although there was no distinction made as to the 
patients attending the services. Protestant and 
Catholic patients attended both services when 
allowed to remain at all. Although the Catholic 
service sometimes consisted simply of the mass, 

Father K usually conducted it and always 

delivered a fine sermon. He was always very 
pleasant to the patients whether of his own religion 
or not. He gathered his own people together for 
special service, and afterward these went to 
communion. 

The Rev. P was a Baptist, and at times 

preached rather interesting sermons. He was 



174 
polite enough if any of the patients spoke to him, 
but outside of the hall he took no interest in the 
spiritual or other welfare of the patient, although 
a paid chaplain. He certainly knew little of what 
it meant to be a patient. He frequently referred 
to the things about us. In one sermon he spoke 
of the birds and the beautiful vines that covered 
the walls. It is certain that the vines that covered 
the walls were never grown for the benefit or 
pleasure of the patients. They were planted to 
make a show to the outside world. During the 
damp summer they furnished a breeding-place 
for myriads of mosquitoes which infested them, 
and a rendezvous for hundreds of sparrows that 
disturbed our early morning slumber with ' their 
sharp chirp. Thanksgiving, it was evident he was 
preaching the sermon prepared for his congregation 
and to be delivered an hour later, for there certainly 
was nothing in it for which we could be expected 
to be thankful. 

Some of the services I was not permitted to 
attend, but never once during the many I did 
attend, did I hear a prayer that doctors and 
attendants be directed in their efforts, or that God 
might restore us to health. 

A patient was often deprived of the privilege 
of attending church or entertainments simply 
because the attendant wished to exhibit his 
authority, to be mean to the patient, or some other 
reason which ought not to deprive the patient of 
his right. 



175 

AMUSEMENTS. 

The patients heartily enjoyed the entertain- 
ments furnished by talent from the city. A 
minstrel show by the High School boys, a play by 
some amateur theatrical company from one of 
the Catholic Churches, musical and literary enter- 
tainments by various Young Ladies' Societies, a 
part from vaudeville, or a musical programme 
provided by a music teacher and her pupils, always 
interested the patients. With the exception of 
the two or three high-class parts from vaudeville, 
the performances were very ordinary, yet the 
poorest performance was a treat. 

Usually there was a long wait before the enter- 
tainment began. Sometimes the show, as these 
entertainments were called, did not materialize, 
and frequently the patients were taken from the 
hall before the programme was concluded. 

Usually the entertainments furnished by 
the young people from the city were given in 
duplicate, the first night for the patients, the 
second night for outsiders. These were mostly 
friends of those taking part, and after the 
programme was completed, the seats were 
moved to one side and dancing indulged in 
until midnight. 

The one diversion to be had on every ward 
was a game of cards. On hall ten there was no 
other amusement or pastime. In hall nine, there 
was a small billiard table and a piano, besides 
which several patients had musical instruments 
of their own on which they played nicely. In 
ward eleven there was a regular billiard room, with 



176 
a combination pool and billiard table, but most 
of the patients who frequented the billiard room 
played cards, dominoes or checkers, while they 
smoked or chewed tobacco. There was a sitting- 
room in ward eleven also, where those who did 
not wish to smoke might enjoy themselves. This 
part of the ward was very homelike, with its 
birds and flowers and the gentle presence of a 
woman. 

The hospital orchestra was composed of male 
and female attendants and two patients, who had 
been inmates a long time. No attempt was made 
to induce patients, recently admitted, to play, 
although there were capable musicians among the 
newer ones. An attendant, however, who never 
played a musical instrument, was added to the 
orchestra to play the drums, etc. Attendants 
were paid extra for playing in the orchestra, and 
sometimes secured engagements in the city. 

Rehearsals were given on Tuesday and Friday 
afternoons, sometimes on the men's wards, some- 
times on the women's. These were visiting days 
to the public and the music was furnished while 
various parties of Visitors were shown through the 
visiting wards. The orchestra never played except 
on wards through which visitors were allowed to 
be taken, so that many patients never heard the 
sound of sweet music, never were permitted to 
attend church, never allowed at any of the enter- 
tainments, never taken out of doors into the fresh 
air and sunshine, although they were capable of 
enjoying these things a.nd there was no sufficient 
reason why they should not be permitted to enjoy 
them. 



177 

Just one so-called "patients' dance" was 
given during the year. It was in the early part 
of my treatment, and I was just beginning to im- 
prove and was invited to attend and to join in the 
dance, one of the attendants offering to secure a part - 
ner for me, but I did not feel well enough to take 
part. An attendant sat beside me and tried to make 
it interesting for me and to induce me to stay, 
after I asked to retire, by saying some of the 
patients produced very comical sights by their 
movements. I remained throughout the dance 
but did not see anything so very ridiculous, but 
did notice that the few patients who danced did so 
very gracefully. The attendants monopolized 
the floor nearly the whole evening, as very few 
patients were there. A lady doctor was present 
on this occasion, it being a rare thing to see a doctor 
present at any function for the patients. She did 
not dance but made herself conspicuous by the 
manner in which she paraded up and down the hall. 

Saturday afternoons during the summer a 
team made up from the attendants played basebaH 
with various teams from the city. A few women 
and a number of men were taken to the grandstand 
to watch the game. Patients were not allowed to 
play ball; in fact, I never knew of an attempt to 
interest a patient in anything but work that had 
to be done. It was evident that these games were 
played for the pleasure of attendants rather than 
the patients, as two games would be played some 
afternoons, but the patients were never allowed to 
remain to the second, even the day a band from 
the city played, and frequently the patients were 
taken in before the first game was finished. 



178 
During the circuit meetings for trotting and 
pacing horses in June and September, a carryall, 
holding eighteen or twenty, was filled with patients, 
and a couple of attendants to look after them, 
and taken to the races. A list of the patients 
selected to attend was made out each day by the 
supervisor, and while some were allowed to go 
more than once, a different set was usually taken 
each day. I managed to attend four days out of 
the five during the June meeting, but left the 
hospital before the September meeting. My name 
was not on the list the first day, but the attendant 
on the ward said he would see that I was allowed 
to go, and he did. The doctor suggested I go out 
every time the patients were taken from either 
ward nine or ten, and I used his order to attend 
the races. It was a fine opportunity to become 
accustomed once more to the outdoor surround- 
ings, and to meet people on the outside world. 
It was beautiful weather and I understood some- 
thing of trotting and pacing horses, but it was still 
more interesting because I was in the realm of the 
supernatural, and I knew that the black horse 
would win the first heat, as he did. Our wagon 
was on the grounds early and stood near the path 
to the grandstand. I was very much interested in 
psychology, and to sit in the wagon and watch two 
or three thousand people pass by us was a study 
in itself. I knew, personally, several thousand 
people in the city, having lived there eleven years, 
but of the several thousands who passed our wagon 
during the four days, only two were personal 
acquaintances, and both of these were lovers of 
horses. 



179 

The attendants, too, were a study. The first 
day we had two young fellows who were greatly 
interested in the women who occupied a hired hack 
near us. These attendants allowed those of us 
who wished to get out of the wagon and stand 
where we could secure the best view. The second 
day we had an attendant who said : " All the saloon- 
keepers bow to me . ' ' The third day we had attend- 
ants who allowed only those to leave the wagon 
who had the price and would treat them and their 
friends at the refreshment booth. 



READING MATTER. 

My friends were told by the doctors that 
when I was able to read I would have access to 
the daily papers, a library of general literature 
and a medical library. For months I did not have 
a daily paper to look at. The attendants pur- 
chased their own papers, and while it would have 
been a pleasure to be offered the privilege of looking 
over the paper I certainly had no right to expect it. 
The head of ward ten took it jointly with the 
attendant in ward eleven, who read it, allowed 
other attendants to read it, and then passed it on 
to another ward. The head of ward nine kept 
his in his pocket when not using it, and there was 
never a paper of recent date left around where I 
could see it. After I was there some months, 
there was a Times, marked wards nine and ten, 
which a patient who went for the laundry some- 
times brought to me. Where he found it is more 
than I can guess, and I never thought to ask him. 



180 
When I reached ward eleven I found they had a 
file for papers, but there was seldom a paper of 
recent date there and often the file was empty. 

After I was well enough to go down town I 
ordered a daily paper for myself. Two other 
patients on the open ward were supposed to receive 
evening papers, but they were seldom delivered 
until the attendants and often other patients had 
read them, and if we managed to secure four papers 
a week we did well. 

There was a library connected with the hospital 
but I was never asked if I would like a book and 
never knew of any other patient being asked. 
One patient who had been there formerly and 
knew how to secure a book used to get one occa- 
sionally after he worked outside, but I noticed he 
generally took books that were in the ward office, 
where they were left by the attendants who had 
books from the library for themselves. Several 
patients took great pleasure in reading when they 
could get an interesting book, and I noticed patients 
reading who did not seem interested in anything 
else. Once in a while a patient on parole who 
visited the city would bring in an armful of old 
papers, most of them published in the smaller 
towns around. The attendant would take them 
the next day and put them in the grate. Once 
he set the chimney on fire, which gave me an 
opportunity to see the fire -fighting apparatus. 

Occasionally a number of old copies of popular 
monthly journals were -placed on the ward. 
Many patients were interested in these and especi- 
ally those who had been confined for a long time. 
I did not happen to be a Rip Van Winkle and 



181 
could not become interested in those old journals 
referring to the first election of President McKinley, 
who had been dead and buried some years. 

After I was on parole I took the liberty, 
without permission, of sitting in the medical 
library one day as I waited the return from dinner 
of the young woman who sold the postage stamps. 
While I was there the superintendent sent one of 
the women from the office to inquire what I wished, 
and after telling her I was waiting to get a stamp 
I was allowed to remain. This gave me an 
opportunity of looking over the books, but there 
was nothing of interest. Pepper's System of 
Medicine and Ashurst's System of Surgery were 
the newest, and I owned and had read these some 
years before. I consider everything in that 
library out-of-date, a large part of it being made 
up of Reports of State Institutions. 



TOBACCO. 

Tobacco, its utter worthlessness, its detri- 
mental influence and injurious effects upon the 
mind and body, is so important that I have given 
it a chapter of its own. 

They call a man addicted to the use of morphia, 
cocaine, chloral, or other drugs, a fiend. The 
attendants looked upon and spoke of these patients 
as if they were greater sinners than those addicted 
to other habits over which they had no control. 
These drugs produce a condition which is more 
torturing, and the patient becomes more utterly 
incapable of controlling himself when forced to 



182 
abandon their use, but yet I doubt if anything 
could be more terrible than the tortures suffered 
by those having delirium tremens. I have also 
heard patients tell of the dreadful suffering occa- 
sioned by the forced abstinence from tobacco. 

One of the greatest abuses in the State Hospital 
is tobacco. Every employee I met in the hospital, 
from the superintendent down, with the exception 
of the assistant superintendent and third assistant, 
to my certain knowledge were addicted to the use 
of tobacco, and these medical gentlemen may 
have been also. Some attendants chewed inces- 
santly and squirted the juice out of the windows 
and the patients did likewise, so that the sills of 
every open window looked like the inside of a 
cuspidor. Many of the attendants smoked cigar- 
ettes and the doctors smoked cigars. Patients 
were allowed to smoke by the doctors' permission 
in the bay window off the hall leading to the 
diningroom. This hall was connected with ward 
nine and separated by a locked door from hall ten- 
No smoking was allowed in hall ten, and the 
attendants would often refuse to allow a patient 
to go up to the smoking room. I saw the doctor 
take the pipe away from one patient to whom he 
had given permission to smoke, because he was 
smoking in the toilet room, although the attendant 
would not allow him to go to the smoking room. 
I also saw an attendant break the pipe of another 
patient because of smoking in the toilet room, 
and it was no easy matter for these patients to 
secure pipes. 

So many friends of patients think they are 
doing a great kindness by bringing tobacco to their 



183 

friends and relatives in the hospital. It might 
be a satisfaction to some patients if they were 
supplied with an amount siifiicient for their use 
until the next visit. But few, if any, not on parole 
or those without money of their own in their 
pocket, were likely to have tobacco for daily use. 
I saw one visitor leave two or three pounds of 
chewing tobacco for a patient who was unable 
to take care of his own things. I told the friend 
of one patient with whom I was acquainted that 
fruit .was what her brother needed. I observed 
however, that at her next visit she brought cigars 
and gave them to the attendant to deal out to her 
brother, and I heard that brother, after being 
transferred, ask where that man who had his cigars 
was, but he never saw the attendant nor cigars 
afterward. 

If tobacco is a good thing, then let the State 
furnish it. Let it be dealt out properly and 
regularly. Tobacco-users are usually generous 
with their tobacco and dislike to refuse a person a 
chew or smoke. I have seen more than one 
patient, given from two to half a dozen papers 
of tobacco, hand it out to other patients, and not 
have enough for a chew or a smoke a few hours 
afterward. But to supply enough tobacco for 
the patients to use as they wished would require 
tons during the year. I saw the day supervisor 
hand a paper of tobacco to the head attendant 
for a patient on the ward, but it was not usual for 
patients on the ward to be favored in this manner. 
Men who worked were usually well supplied, and 
those on the ward would beg a little from them. 
One patient told me that he would have had a 



184 
hard time during the three weeks he was in the 
hospital, had it not been that the attendant had 
given him fifteen cents to buy tobacco. The 
attendant in charge of the dining room told me 
that he bought tobacco with his own money to 
hand around to patients. It was his custom to 
promise patients tobacco in order to induce them 
to work in the diningroom, and the same method 
was followed by the supervisor. A colored man 
recently admitted was given his dinner in his 
locked apartment. The tray was removed but 
the chair was left in his room. After eating his 
dinner he asked for a cigarette, and no attention 
being paid to his request, he smashed down the 
door and broke up the chair. Four attendants 
were present, but were afraid to interfere. The 
colored gentleman remarked that he had asked 
four times for a cigarette and wanted to know 
why it had not been brought. I had some tobacco 
in my pocket, and gave it to the attendant who 
threw it at him and then removed the debris. 
One attendant remarked that hereafter every 
time he asked for a cigarette they would trim him. 
When the doctor in charge came on the ward I 
related the circumstances to him, and he replied 
that he could not allow him to have cigarettes, but 
this patient was allowed to have them afterward. 
It would please me to see the employees, the 
doctors especially, locked up and tobacco dealt 
out to them as it was allowed to patients. 



185 



THE ABUSES. 

The abuse of patients is beyond description. 
That men would treat their fellow creatures as 
they do is beyond belief. They are not treated 
as human beings, and seldom do the attendants 
speak of the patients as men. When the head of 
the hospital, the superintendent himself, on his 
only visit sat down beside my bed without saying 
even good morning, and when the assistant 
physician in charge will insult and abuse patients, 
it is no wonder to me that the attendants should 
act as they do. 

The first patient I saw treated in an inhuman 
manner was a cigarmaker, a young man who had 
given me an orange the previous Sunday evening. 
When talking to me he seemed comparatively 
well, and I did not know at first whether he was a 
patient or an attendant. We were going up to 
breakfast one morning and just outside hall ten 
door I saw three men grab him by the throat. I 
heard the patient say that the doctor said to leave 
the door between nine and ten open. I never saw 
that patient afterward. Whether he was choked 
to death or not I am unable to say, but of this I am 
certain, after what I saw and experienced, patients 
are choked to death, as sworn to by an attendant 
who witnessed the act at King's Park, N. Y. 

The next hideous sight I saw occurred some 
time afterward. We had just come down from 
breakfast and after passing into ward ten an 
attendant attacked George S. and kicked and 
pounded him until it seemed certain he would not 
stop until he had killed him. One of the other 



186 
attendants asked Bill what the patient had done, 
and he replied that another attendant said George 
S. had told him he was going to run away again. 
If the attendant had told the patient at the time 
he was ill-treating him why he was doing it, there 
would seem to be a semblance of reason in the 
attendant's act, but knowing George S. as I do, 
I know he was incapable of understanding. He 
was the man who regarded the white horses as 
ours. He knew he was in a place of torment, but 
he had not the least conception how to escape 
except by trying to run away, as he did at one 
time. Nothing seemed to excite the attendants 
like a patient attempting to escape. I suppose 
they thought it reflected on them in some way, 
and the patient must suffer for it. 

The next brutal attack was made by the 
attendant who abused George S. It occurred 
after breakfast a few weeks later, just inside the' 
door of ward ten. I would like to emphasize 
that this attendant did not do duty on ward ten 
and had no business whatever touching these 
patients under any circumstances. The patient 
attacked at this time was a colored man named 
Rastus. Of all the demoniacal attacks ever made 
upon a living creature that was one of the most 
inhuman. He kicked that negro as high as he 
could kick, pounded him with his fists, until the 
whole surroundings were covered with blood. 
The attack occurred in the bay window. There 
was blood all over the floor, the radiator, the 
walls, the seats and the windows. It seemed as 
if the attendant would never stop. I sat there 
and cried. Attendants G. and H. seemed riveted 



187 
to the floor and were ashy white. At length the 
attack ceased and the inquiry went around, "What 
made Bill so mad? What made Bill so mad?" 
No one could answer. When the excitement was 
over, it was found that the attendant had cut his 
hand on the patient's teeth. H., a second year 
medical student, rushed to the ward nine office for 
bandage and treatment. Blood-poisoning did 
not ensue; if it had, would it not have been 
reported that the patient had bitten him? 

On ward ten Mr. R. pried off a hinge and tried 
to make his escape. Four attendants were 
handling him, and he was struck with the broad 
arm of a rocking-chair and his head was cut open. 
Not long after this, John R. gave this same patient 
a choking because he could not keep from talking. 
The marks of the attendant's fingers were on his 
throat. The doctor saw them and I heard him 
ask the head attendant in the diningroom about 
them. The attendant referred him to Paddy R., 
and I heard Pat say: "Yes, he got them marks 
Saturday night." That was everything that was 
said about it. 

One Sunday afternoon attendant D. made a 
most vicious attack on Bert EL, right before two 
young men who were visiting another patient. 
It certainly appeared as if we were in Dante's 
Inferno. The attack upon Bert was very similar 
to that of the other attendant on Rastus. Of all 
the patients Bert K. certainly received the most 
severe punishment, the most shameful neglect and 
worst ill-treatment. Under the head of hypo- 
dermics, I have told how he was given a hypo- 
dermic so often in the morning and allowed to lie 



188 
curled up on the floor. Night after night I have 
seen him compelled to stand in the toilet room 
until at length he had a gangrenous foot, which 
apparently came from standing on the cold tile 
floor. It is certain that the abuse of the hypo- 
dermic by the assistant physician in charge is the 
most criminal act of the age. I know exactly 
whereof I speak, and I say it calmly that a negro 
in the South, saturated with kerosene oil, tied to 
a tree with wood piled round about him, and 
burned to death, is humanely treated as compared 
to the deliberate use of the hypodermic by the 
doctor in charge for revenge. 

In the dining-room, every day, in fact I do not 
think I exaggerate when I say on an average 
every meal, patients were choked by the elbow 
method which does not leave any marks. 

After we were transferred to ward twenty - 
eight, two attendants, brothers, crushed a new 
patient under a rocking-chair. We were taken to 
ward fifty-six to be shaved. This patient could 
not sit down and keep quiet, and they tried to 
make him. They would simply have to crush the 
life out of him in order to do so. I also saw 
attendant F. shove Mr. A. downstairs, giving him 
a most vicious kick in the abdomen. These are 
instances I witnessed where perfectly harmless 
patients, who are still to be seen and anybody can 
learn for himself how inoffensive they are, were 
done grievous bodily harm, for which doctors and 
attendants could be criminally prosecuted. 

It is very difficult for some patients to explain 
what is done to them. One man came up to me 
one day and told me they tuned him almost every 



189 
day. I laughed — that was before I understood 
the patients — and wanted to know what he meant. 
He unbuttoned his shirt, gave me the wink and 
showed me how he had about three inches of 
paper stuffed all around him under his shirt. 
Then he pulled up his pants and showed me the 
rags he had wrapped around his legs. The tuning 
was the kicking and pounding he was given. 
Another patient, who was in ward ten for a long 
time before being transferred to the infirmary 
ward, met me in the wash room of ward twelve 
one day and wanted to know if I knew where he 
came from. Before he became so ill physically, 
he called out to me : ' ' Heaven, music f orevermore . ' ' 
I knew, therefore, that he had been entirely over 
the line in heaven, but just for fun I said: "You 
came down from hell." I really meant that he 
came down from that awful ward ten to ward 
twelve. He said: "No, sir; I came down from 
heaven. They crucified me and I went to heaven 
and came down again." I said: "Mr. R., you are 
mistaken. They never crucified you. I saw 
what they did to you. That night you pried the 
hinge off the bars, they cut your head open with 
the broad arm of the rocking chair. An attendant 
choked you one Saturday night, leaving the marks 
of his fingers on your throat. They told me they 
smashed five of your ribs later. They dragged 
you by the neck into your room and locked you 
in there. They simply tortured the life out of 
you until Father K. came and anointed you for 
death and administered the last sacrament. Then 
they carried you down on the stretcher into the 
ward where you are now, and you are back to life 



190 
again." Anyone may feel satisfied that men who 
say they are tuned, crucified and the like, are 
having something shocking done to them. Patients 
who become familiar with the place know that to 
speak about the way they or other patients are 
treated means torture of some kind and curtailed 
privileges, so they keep quiet. There must be 
something terribly Throng going on when attendants 
will refuse to give their names to a patient for fear 
he will tell the doctor what happens on the ward. 
Attendants thoroughly understand the situation. 
When talking among themselves I heard one 
remark that when an outsider reported the abuse 
of a patient the attendant would be discharged. 
Once, when a patient escaped and was abused 
when caught, a resident who saw the attack upon 
the patient reported it and the attendant was 
discharged. 

I was told by the head attendant of the ward 
that there was a rule requiring three attendants 
present before he could allow one out for a walk. 
It was quite a usual thing for the ward to be left 
without a single attendant, and I have had com- 
pany when there was no attendant on the ward. 
The idea that attendants are there to prevent 
attacks of one patient upon the other or upon 
themselves is simply preposterous. The attend- 
ants delighted to see patients get into a scrap and 
encouraged fighting. I have seen attendants 
trying to make trouble between patients, one, an 
old colored man, who would not touch the poor 
fellow who wanted his slippers. Old Ben remarked 
that the patients had more sense than the attend- 
ants, and he voiced mv sentiments. 



191 

The doctor in charge, more than once, asked 
what difference it made to me how the others were 
treated. How could I be human and not care? 
It was a personal injury to me to be obliged to 
witness such sights. Some of the patients were 
personal friends and acquaintances or relatives 
of my friends in the city, and harder still, some 
had no friends, while some could not talk our 
language, and had no one to interpret for them. 

These men were so sick and so harmless. Mr, 
A., a personal friend of mine who was kicked so 
brutally in the abdomen, was as gentlemanly 
and inoffensive as any man I ever met. I was 
reliably informed that Mr. R. had been one of the 
most agreeable conductors on the New York 
Central system, and the attendants themselves 
said there was no need of treating him as he was 
treated. 

If the State of New York is back of me to tell 
the truth, as the superintendent said at the staff 
meeting, let it produce the witnesses I can name 
and allow me to prove what I have stated. 

The minor abuses are innumerable. I sat 
beside ex-State Senator G. for weeks, and never 
knew a single meal to pass that he was not teased 
by one or other of the attendants. Mr. D. was 
also treated in a similar manner. He was irritable 
and they would call him the "Old Puke," and 
strike him on the head and tease him in various 
ways. Throwing food was a regular meal time 
occurrence. One attendant would throw food at 
the patients with the day supervisor in the dining- 
room. The head attendant of ward nine would 
have charge of the diningrcom for a time and the 



192 
head of ten for the next term. They never tried 
to prevent the abuse of patients nor called the 
attendants to account. In ward nine it was almost 
a daily occurrence for the head attendant to tease 
two old men, Mr. S. and Mr. R. Mr. S. would 
become very excited, and I have seen the day 
supervisor present and simply laugh, sometimes 
exciting the patient himself. In ward nine the 
nagging of patients by the head attendant was 
constant, and became simply unbearable, until 
some patients preferred to be transferred to the 
disturbed ward. 

Why helpless, hopeless human beings should 
be locked up for years, never permitted to put 
their feet on the earth nor breathe one breath 
of the pure air of heaven, sit or roam about on a 
ward all day, sleep in a foul dormitory at night, 
if they do sleep, or stand in a water closet if they 
do not, kicked and pounded and dosed with the 
most torturing drugs, never spoken to by name 
but constantly cursed and called the foulest of 
names by degraded fellow beings, is more than I 
can understand. When I was a physician at 
King's Park, N.Y., I saw an attendant come home 
from the saloon in the village intoxicated. The 
next morning I was called to treat a patient who 
had his ribs fractured in the cottage where this 
attendant was on duty. The ribs protruded into 
the lung and allowed the air to escape under the 
skin, so that his side was distended like a football. 
This patient, while perfectly harmless, was abusive 
with his tongue. What conclusion could I come 
to when they told me he fell downstairs but that, 
as I afterwards learned, with help from another 



193 

cottage, they had thrown him over the baluster. 
What I have here described has no reference to the 
rough handling of excited patients, blacking their 
eyes, bruising their bodies, twisting their limbs, 
shoving them into chairs, forcing them into pro- 
tection sheets and the like. What I have here 
described is merely the unnecessary and shameful 
abuse of quiet, harmless patients, to give vent to 
pent-up brutality, or to allow to escape the accumu- 
lated effects of a night's drunken debauch in the 
lowest dives in the city. 



VISITS TO A CANADIAN ASYLUM. 

Being acquainted and having made several 
visits to a Canadian asylum in former } r ears, I felt 
after being a patient in New York State that I 
would like to see the disturbed ward of a Canadian 
asylum. I telephoned, asking when their visiting 
days were, and was told they did not allow general 
visitors. A lady of our acquaintance had a friend 
who was an attendant in the north building, the 
disturbed wards of the asylum. I invited her 
to accompany us, and while calling on the attend- 
ant, asked to be shown through the wards. One 
of the assistant physicians introduced me to the 
assistant in charge, who gave me a pass permitting 
us to be allowed through. I had a short conver- 
sation with the physician in charge, during which 
we spoke of my friend, Dr. Macklin, a missionary 
in China. The doctor made the remark that in 
China they drown those who go insane. I wanted 
to know if he did not think that a humane method 



194 
of disposing of them, but he did not answer. I 
would like any sane man to live one year locked 
up as the patients are locked up in the north 
building, be abused as they are abused, and then 
tell me which treats their insane humanely — China 
or Canada. There were six wards, three for men 
and three for women, with about thirty patients 
in each. A ward consisted of a hall with rooms 
on either side, an alcove in which the patients sat 
in one end, and an alcove with tables in it at the 
other where they ate. When we reached the north 
building, we were admitted and the attendant sent 
for. He came and I presented the pass, but he 
told me he would like to see his chief before taking 
us through. We waited thirty minutes before 
the attendant returned. When we were shown 
through every attendant was at "attention." It 
was plain to be seen they had all been noticed 
that visitors were to pass through, and as there 
was a vacancy on the medical staff they did not 
know whether I was an applicant or not. In the 
first ward we visited one man was terribly battered, 
with fresh wounds on his face. I was shown the 
toilet room, where they use a tub to bathe. The 
chief also took me into a room where a colored 
patient was in bed. He told me the patient had 
been operated on for hernia but it was not a success. 
On the women's ward one lady said it was terrible 
to be locked up with no privileges, not even allowed 
to attend church. Another lady asked us if we 
brought her an orange. As the young woman who 
accompanied us felt so ill simply passing through 
the five wards, the sixth was not visited. On the 
outside I remarked to the attendant that thev 



195 
must have had a [terrible fight to batter up a man 
as they had on the first ward. He assured me that 
they had had one of the roughest times he had ever 
seen there just before we entered. I remarked 
that I supposed they allowed the patients out in 
the airing court, as there were two courts, one for 
men and another for the women, with fences so 
high no one could possibly climb over them. He 
replied that the patients had not been out of the 
wards since he was appointed, and that was six 
months previous. 

The records should show when those patients 
had the last orange or apple, or if they ever had 
one of either. It will not be a difficult matter to 
verify the patient's statement that she was not 
allowed to attend church. There should be no 
trouble in ascertaining how many patients are 
bathed in one water. Let any disinterested party 
remain on the wards and learn exactly why a 
patient is pounded, his face all cut and bleeding, 
and he will find it was not necessary. 

There being a vacancy on the medical staff I 
thought it might assist me in writing on mental 
ailments to take the position for a time. The 
position was filled, however, when I applied, but 
the superintendent volunteered to show me through. 
There certainly was no previous announcement of 
our coming. Apologies were offered by the 
superintendent for the apparent laxity in the 
discipline, as it was near supper time, which were 
unnecessary, as it is a great relief to everybody 
to relax and not be compelled to live up to the 
mark every minute. I was shown a trough- by 
which patients were to shoot the shoot in case of 



196 
fire. I was also shown a blue room and a door 
in the infirmary with a little peep hole above with 
a tin slide to cover it and an opening two feet by 
four inches at the bottom of the door through 
which the light from the lantern could be thrown. 
These things were new and the manner of looking 
in at the patient is certainly a great improvement 
over anything I ever saw. Nothing was so 
annoying as to have the attendant open your 
door and enter your room at night and be obliged 
to turn on the electric light. We visited a small 
kitchen with a range. The superintendent spoke 
to the lady attendant about there being a thousand 
pounds of iron charged to the range. There was 
present a middle-aged patient, who looked after 
the range, and when the superintendent spoke 
about the grates being burned out he disputed it. 
I took the liberty to remark that it seemed impos- 
sible that a range of that size should burn up a 
thousand pounds of grates. The superintendent 
said the man* was only a patient. He could not 
offer a greater insult. I never saw that patient 
before or since, but I understand patients. He 
will do his work neither better nor worse at this 
hour than he did it at that time, and it is there 
for any one to see if it is possible to care for the 
range better than it has been cared for by him. I 
do not know why a thousand pounds of iron should 
be charged to that range, but it certainly was not 
polite, to say the least, to censure the lady attend- 
ant before a visitor or to belittle the statement of a 
patient until he knew the facts. We next visited 
the infirmary ward and the superintendent remark- 
ed that I would be interested in a patient with a 



197 
cancer of the breast. The young woman did not 
wish to expose the sore. She laid her head in the 
bend of her elbow but the attendant undid her 
waist and took out fifty to sixty pins that the 
patient had stuck between the buttons. The 
attendant remarked that she had a mania for 
sticking pins in her waist. The doctor told me he 
had written her friends concerning the removal 
of the cancerous growth. He told me that it gave 
the patient no pain, and I saw that the glands of 
the neck as well as other glands were enlarged. I 
said an operation would do the patient no good. 
Any doctor who understands about cancers could 
tell that an operation would only torture the pati- 
ent and create a painful sore where there was no 
pain. The modesty of the patient was evident 
from her actions. The fact of her sticking pins 
to fasten her waist may be called a mania, but I 
would regard it as an instinct, her only means of 
protecting herself against unnecessary and im- 
proper intrusion. On another ward we looked at 
a patient with melancholia, and the doctor asked 
me what I would do with such a patient. I made 
an answer, and he said opium was the treatment 
and was almost a specific. I wanted to know what 
he would do for the patient when he had created 
the habit, and he told me he would not let the 
patient know what she was getting, as if that 
would make any difference. We had used the 
same treatment years before, and opium for 
melancholia was the only thing I ever knew in the 
way of direct treatment for the mind, and that 
seems to me very doubtful treatment. I would 
like to see a cure and the patient off the medicine, 



198 
before approving of it. Then I was told by the 
doctor about a patient who bit the other patients, 
and how he had to pull all her teeth out. In the 
last ward visited the men were smoking, and I 
asked if that was allowed. He said it would be 
hard not to permit it, and I said nothing, but 
wondered if tobacco was supplied regularly. The 
superintendent also showed me where the attend- 
ants used to sleep and pointed to the toilet room 
opposite. He said the attendants were never fit 
for duty sleeping 'in such a place, and spoke with 
pride of how he had them removed to better 
quarters. I wonder if he ever thinks whether the 
patients who now occupy those rooms sleep or not. 
As in all other asylums the patient is the last 
consideration. The superintendent informed me 
that he had made quite a success of curing hernia. 
That tallied with what I learned at my former 
visit to the north building. It would interest me 
to know why with an infirmary a patient should 
be kept in bed on a disturbed ward. It certainly 
seems time for something to be done to oversee 
the work of a man who assumes the authority of 
pulling out the teeth of a woman, of operating on 
a hernia for the sake of an operation, and of 
operating on a cancer that is incurable. 



THE FRIENDS OF PATIENTS. 

If the friends of patients could only realize 
how much their visits mean, they would make them 
more frequent. It is certain, at least, that rela- 
tives would not neglect their own as they do. It 



199 
not only deprives the patient of pleasure and 
benefit, but the absence of those whom they expect 
to visit them creates wrong ideas. One patient 
was sure, since it cost only ten cents to come to 
see him, that his sister or his brother would 
certainly have visited him if the authorities at the 
hospital were not keeping them away. But it is 
not always a delusion. I had many friends who 
wished to see me, and whom I certainly would 
have been glad to meet, but when they called, 
they were told by the doctor that my wife did not 
wish to have me receive visitors, which was abso- 
lutely false. This prevented me from seeing 
friends who would have relieved the terrible 
loneliness when my relatives were out of the city. 
When I understood the true state of affairs, I had 
my wife write to one friend to call and at her next 
visit had her make a list of those whom I wished 
to see. I told the doctor that he did not tell the 
truth about my wife leaving orders for visitors 
not to see me, and I showed him the list. He -told 
me they would be allowed to see me and they were. 
I fully appreciate how useless it seems to 
friends and how painful to relatives to visit patients 
who will not talk, or perhaps the patient will be 
abusive, although that is not usual. Doctors 
supervisors, attendants, everybody in charge is 
anxious to have the patient make as presentable 
appearance as possible when receiving a visitor, 
and the whole ward is brightened by the visit. 
Doctors, as well as attendants, are favorably 
influenced by the visits of friends and the patient 
may greatly enjoy it, although unable to expres s 
the pleasure it affords him. The first Sunday 



200 
my brother called to see me I did not know him 
for sure, but was pleased to have him with me 
although he told me afterwards I would not talk 
to him. Mr. B., when on the open ward, felt it 
keenly to think that his friends would not call to 
take him for a visit home, when the authorities 
would have permitted him to go. He told me one 
day that he had seven brothers and tw^o sisters, 
and not one of them cared enough to come and 
visit him. In my many years' experience in this 
work as a physician, I only knew of one, a mother, 
fully faithful to her child, Jane S. This mother 
visited her daughter every two weeks for twenty 
years, which was as often as friends were allowed 
to visit patients in the New York Hospital, unless 
on the infirmary ward. If relatives lose all interest 
in those belonging to them, as they do, is it any 
wonder that strangers neglect and abuse them? 

For some time after I was admitted patients 
received the visits of their friends on the wards 
which they occupied, but an order was given, the 
attendants said by the doctor in charge, that all 
patients must be taken to ward eleven to see their 
friends. It certainly produced an injurious effect 
on the other wards and deprived other patients 
of ever seeing sane people. 

Patients are allowed to wear their own clothes, 
and one who can realize at all appreciates that 
privilege, and if the friends can afford it, the 
furnishing of a new suit will give satisfaction and 
pleasure. A prominent lawyer in the city, with 
whose circumstances I was familiar, called one 
day to see his brother. The patient was taken 
from ward ten to eleven to meet him, but when 



201 

the brother saw him he told the attendant to take 
him away, that he did not wish to see him in those 
old clothes. The patient was capable of caring for 
his clothes, and I fail to understand why his well- 
to-do brother would not supply him with a new 
suit. 

All the fresh fruit I saw handed out to patients 
by the hospital was at table. Twice we had one 
partly decomposed apple given each of us, and 
they all had the appearance of having been frozen. 
Even at Christmas time only a few poor specimens 
of pecan nuts were distributed to some of the patients 
on the ward. On the 4th of July we did have a 
treat of lemonade and peanuts, but only a certain 
number were allowed out on the lawn to enjoy it. 
It did seem to me that a rich State in a Christiau 
country might give the patients, especially those 
without friends, of whom there were so many, a 
decent treat once a year when all the world is 
rejoicing. Or surely, if the State fails, some 
charitably disposed persons might spend a few 
pennies to allow those unfortunate beings a taste 
of an orange or some others dainty. 

The State Hospital is run irrespective of 
authority. Without exception every employee 
will lie and steal, in fact they own the patient and 
everything belonging to him. No one but a person 
shut away from everybody and everything, without 
money or relatives in the country, and no friends 
permitted to see him, can imagine what a few little 
belongings mean. For some months there was 
no comb on the ward, no toothpicks or soap 
furnished. My wife, at my request, furnished 
me with these articles and a small bottle of per- 



202 
fume. The head attendant of hall nine used the 
whole bottle of perfume, without asking or thank- 
ing me for it. It was customary for the attendants 
to go through the pockets of patients, and when 
he picked out the perfume he simply asked if it 
would stain linen and poured it on his handker- 
chief. Afterwards when he wanted it he simply 
asked if I had any more of that perfume and took 
it. I thought the first time he took it he wanted 
to have the doctor test it to see if it contained 
any drug, as the dose of salts sent to me was in 
such a concentrated solution I imagined they 
thought my wife was bringing medicine she should 
not bring, similarly concentrated. A friend of 
ours sent me a basket of fruit in July, oranges, 
lemons and grape fruit. I took a grape fruit 
down to the washroom to eat, as patients were 
very envious of those having fruit, for while I would 
gladly have shared it with others, it was impossible 
to divide it among two hundred. In the washroom 
I met an attendant from twelve. He wanted to 
know what I had, and when I told him he said 
when he was a soldier in the Phillipines they had 
grape fruit much larger than that. He took it 
from my hand, cut it in two, taking half himself 
without saying a word. This attendant did not 
know but that this was the only fruit I had or 
ever had while there, for he knew the hospital 
never supplied any. Fruit in excess of what 
could be eaten at the time, brought by friends, 
left in charge of the attendants and placed in the 
office sideboard with name on, disappeared 
without the patient getting a taste. Cigars and 
tobacco disappeared in a similar manner. A 



203 
$5.00 pair of patent leather shoes were new when 
delivered to the store room but were well worn 
the first time I put them on. Three good white 
shirts, all laundered, of the five sent there were 
seen by the head attendant in the drawer where 
extra shirts were kept, yet at the next change the 
attendant said I did not have a clean one and they 
have not been seen since. Another patient in 
hall nine discovered that a pair of gold cuff buttons, 
which he prized, were missing from his cuffs the 
third morning after his arrival. He spoke to the 
head attendant about them and the patient found 
them in his pocket a day or tw T o later. 

My advice to friends is that if the patient tells 
you he is able to care for fruit, tobacco, money, 
it w T ill be all right to furnish a small supply, but 
generally speaking, it is better to take what fruit 
he can eat and see that he eats it. If he is too ill 
to eat it himself, cut up the fruit and see if you can 
feed it to him. Relatives of patients had unlimited 
privileges so far as visiting, remaining and bringing 
what was proper to the patients, yet I never saw 
but one man visit at bedtime and that was a 
father, and even he did not ask to see or take the 
liberty of seeing where his son slept. You are the 
real custodian of your brother. It is your right 
to see what treatment is accorded your own. Ask 
to be allowed to accompany him to his meals, see 
what food is furnished him and how it is served. 
Remain the whole day with him, and if they go 
for a walk accompany him to the basement and 
see how he is given a hat or overcoat. The 
attendants will act better and not take so long 
smoking cigarettes and wasting precious minutes 



204 
in that stuffy hole which should be spent in the 
fresh air, for walks out of doors are few and never 
mean more than minutes anyway. Stay with 
your brother one whole night, see if he sleeps in 
the dormitory, how many of the patients disturb 
him getting up and walking around, and how 
many make a W. C. of the bed. Keep cool; 
because everybody else is excited is no reason 
why you should become excited and leave. Find 
out when bathing day is and go and see your 
brother get a bath. If you can afford it have 
your family physician call. He may have made 
out the papers and should see where he sent the 
man. Telephone and ask how your brother is. 
If he is well enough, ask to speak with him; there 
is a telephone on the ward. Perhaps you live a 
long way from the hospital and the cost of the 
trip must be considered If so, write to your 
brother. I know the law allows him to write one 
letter in two weeks, but paper and envelopes are 
scarce articles on a ward, and he may get them 
and he may not, so enclose a stamped envelope 
and a sheet of paper. Write the doctor for a 
report. The superintendent will sign it but the 
assistant physician who has charge of your brother 
will dictate it. Ask the superintendent if he ever 
spoke to your brother, if he would know him by 
name if he met him on the ward, when he last saw 
him previous to him sending you his report. Ask 
him if he sleeps and how he knows whether he 
sleeps or not. Find out if possible how many 
sleep in the same room with him and the size of 
the room. Enquire if he eats and if he ever saw 
him eat. 



205 
If your brother owns property in his own 
right the State must get it, but if he has no property 
do not imagine you are under any obligation to 
anybody for your brother's care, as one mother 
whom I knew did and who paid three dollars a 
week for her son. He will not get any better 
board or treatment. In Canada they do not allow 
general visitors or ordinary friends. If that had 
been the case in the State Hospital, I would have 
missed a few very pleasant beneficial visits. 



THE NEED. 

When the superintendent at the staff-meeting 
asked me what I wanted I was unable to answer 
him. This was the only opportunity I was offered 
to express my wants. What I wanted most is 
what every patient should have, a little freedom, 
a place fenced in and every ward open so that 
patients may spend the time, winter or summer, 
out of doors, if they wish. There were only eight 
patients on the open ward out of three hundred. 

An institutional church is greatly needed, a 
place where men and women can meet together 
during the week for amusement and entertainment 
and attend divine service on Sunday. Of all days 
Sunday was the worst. The ward was filled up 
with workers, the better attendants were usually 
off duty, the doctor relieved himself from service, 
fights were frequent and roughness and abuse 
greater than on any other day. If the religious 
services were held during the day instead of in the 
early morning, and music or a lecture in the 



206 
evening, it would relieve the monotony and be 
helpful to everybody. 

A night medical officer is a necessity, a doctor 
who will remain on the ward all night occasionally 
and see for himself what is required. The whole 
staff of physicians should serve on the reception 
ward and each doctor take charge of a new patient 
in turn. It is prompt attention and persistent 
treatment until results are accomplished that 
counts. If the doctor would pick out two or three 
patients, study them carefully and have them 
nursed properly, he would find out what was 
really required, and understand the things I have 
written. Every patient should receive direct 
attention from the doctor if only allowed two 
minutes twice a week. There is something 
scientifically interesting about every patient. 

There ought to be a staff of visiting physicians, 
and medical men from the city should be allowed 
to have their private patients and private nurses 
the same as in a general hospital. There is no 
doctor or attendant who will do his work thorough- 
ly without someone to direct and look after him. 
As there are no visiting physicians, if the Examiner 
in Albany would call up by telephone each hospital 
in the State and have its superintendent report 
every day the names of patients admitted and 
what treatment he intended to give them, it would 
be an inspiration to the medical staff to do some- 
thing. What a relief and help it would have been 
to me, as well as to other patients, could I know 
there was someone interested in me who really 
understood his business; not sympathetically, 
for I knew I had a host of friends, both Catholic 



207 
and Protestant, praying for me, but scientifically 
interested in me, for that is as much as a patient 
should expect from a doctor. The hospital 
requires a superintendent who will talk with 
patients. He need not weary himself walking the 
wards, for there is a telephone system and he can 
use it. If a patient truthfully says he is perse- 
cuted, not allowed to read the Bible, does not 
receive his daily paper, has had some of his effects 
taken, is being poisoned, the poison put in his food 
abused and neglected, then correct the conditions, 
and if he is not telling the truth then make it clear 
to him that he is mistaken. If the patient says 
he was crucified, tuned., tortured — find out what 
he means. Attendants would soon stop their 
disgraceful talk, their inhuman treatment a.nd 
insulting conduct toward patients if they knew 
the superintendent was interested in them. 

To remedy the abuses in the State Hospital, 
it is absolutely necessary for some one, independent 
of the State, with the necessary knowledge to 
investigate the records and understand the help- 
less unfortunate patients who are tortured with 
those awful hypodermics and the use to which 
protection sheets are put. It also requires some 
one, not paid by the government, to live on the 
ward and study out the true state of affairs. It 
required months for me to realize what was being 
done. I took it for granted that when I saw a 
man choked, jammed into a chair, and otherwise 
ill-treated, it was necessary to the control of 
an obstreperous patient, but I began to notice it 
was almost always the same two attendants who 
did the rough work, like bouncers on the Bowerv, 



208 
and that when several new attendants were 
appointed in the summer these same patients, 
handled by gentlemen, did not need to be abused. 
It required weeks, visiting me every day and 
spending the afternoon, for my wife to understand 
that I and other patients knew what we were 
talking about and that the doctors did not under- 
stand; in fact, really did not want to know. 

Everything the doctor in charge did was done 
with a view to the pro rata per capita. When I 
begged for a powder to obtain a little sleep, he 
said the powder was expensive. When I suggested 
that a doctor should be sent with the attendant 
after the patient and get his history at once, he 
replied that it would be expensive and the State 
would not stand for it. Nothing could be more 
expensive than making insane paupers by neglect, 
ignorance and ill-treatment, to be cared for by the 
State for years. 



THE DR. C. 0. SAHLER SANITARIUM, KING- 
STON-ON-THE-HUDSON, N. Y> 

At the graduating exercises for attendants, 
the superintendent remarked that he hoped to 
make the State Hospital the equal of any private 
sanitarium. Personally acquainted as I am with 
many of the most noted specialists in nervous dis- 
eases and also with several who are looked upon as 
Alienists of a high order at the heads of both 
government and private hospitals for the insane 
in the United States and Canada, it would be a 
dark and sad outlook if I could not point to one 



209 
physician who understands the mind or one 
hospital where mental diseases are treated intelli- 
gently. 

Dr. C. O. Sahler does not accept insane 
patients, but conducts a sanitarium for the 
treatment of nervous and mental diseases, and it 
is evident that insanity is merely an exaggerated 
form of nervous and mental disease. If the 
superintendents of State Hospitals will bring the 
care and treatment of patients up to the standard 
of the Kingston Sanitarium, it would have the 
approval of God and the people. 

I visited this sanitarium for the first time 
seven months after I was allowed to leave the 
State Hospital. While I was satisfied that I had 
recovered and knew that I had learned many things 
I had never known before, it was a great satisfac- 
tion and pleasure to meet a man who understands 
the mind, the treatment of it, and the possibilities 
to which it can be put by the Supreme Intelligence. 
It was a great relief to me to know that he under- 
stood the things that had come to my mind, and 
that I was not the only one possessed of, or rather 
to whom, superhuman intelligence had been com- 
municated, and that there was nothing original 
except God. 

Dr. Sahler is not a religious teacher, but like 
myself, is a regular physician who understands 
the relation of God to the mind and the power 
one mind, in tune with the Infinite Source of love, 
power, life and health, is capable of exercising over 
another. 

Physicians everywhere are so sceptical and 
prejudiced toward his method of treatment, as I 



210 
had been until I was sick, that it is difficult to 
induce the profession to become interested in his 
writings and work, although competent nurses 
and capable physicians well know that it is their 
intelligent sympathy, encouraging presence, the 
faith the patient reposes in them, and the hope 
of recovery they bring into the sick room that 
restores the patient as much as anything. Dr. 
Sahler knows what medicine and surgery has done 
and can do. I am not attempting to make less 
of these, but would like to see Mental Therapeutics 
elevated to the position it should hold, which is 
above, although it includes the skillful handling 
of medicines, operations, etc., as well as thoughts 
uttered or unexpressed. 

Dr. Sahler is a graduate of both a regular and 
homeopathic school, and left a lucrative practice 
in medicine and surgery to enter on his new field 
of work. He is a man of pleasing personality, 
courteous, scholarly and sympathetic. He has a 
soothing magnetic charm of manner that is at once 
fe»lt by the most irritable or peevish patient, and 
the kindly expression of his face and his genial 
bearing at once win him the confidence of his 
patients. He is Nature's physician; his bright, 
cheerful manner acts like a tonic. 

The doctor or an assistant gives each and 
every patient treatment every day. The best of 
food (prepared by a cook, needless to say) is 
furnished under healthful, cheerful surroundings 
and served in the most pleasing manner, men and 
women dining together. The sanitarium has two 
large farms, one, a dairy, stocked with a large herd 
of Jersey cows and cared for by up-to-date methods, 



211 
supplies butter, cream and. milk of the best quality ; 
the other, a truck farm, furnishes all kinds of 
vegetables, berries and fruits in season, together 
with a large storage of winter supplies. The 
establishment does its own canning, fruit, berries 
and vegetables being put up in hermetically sealed 
glass jars for winter use. A large hennery, with 
incubators for the raising of chickens, ducks and 
turkeys, is connected with the farm, so that all 
eggs and poultry used are strictly fresh, which 
means so much to those who are ill. 

A billiard and pool room, gymnasium, dancing 
and lecture room, where entertainments and 
instructive lectures are given, furnish amusement 
for the guests. A swimming pool, together with 
Russian and Turkish baths, is connected with the 
sanitarium. 

The important thing, however, is Dr. Sahler's 
knowledge and experience with the mind and 
mental diseases and his application of this knowl- 
edge in restoring the sick to health. Patients 
voluntarily told me of the harmony existing there, 
saying everybody was so kind to each other. One 
patient described how tired she was of life and 
determined to die when she entered, but after 
treatment became so happy and life so sweet. 



INDEX 



PAGE. 

Introduction 3 

Habit 5 

The Hospital 10 

The Examiner 14 

The Inspector 20 

The Commissioner. ... 21 
The Superintendent.. . 21 
The Assistant Super- 
intendent 25 

The Assistant Physi- 
cian 30 

The First Assistant 

Physician 35 

The Second Assistant 

Physician 38 

The Third Assistant 

Physician 42 

Staff Meeting 44 

Horses 49 

Colors *. . . . 50 

Numbers 53 

Fingers 55 

Telepathy 57 

Electricity 60 

Hypnotism 63 

Religion 65 

God and the Mind 67 

Voices 75 

Angels 81 

Devil 83 

Dentistry 84 

Steward 87 

Day Supervisor 88 

Night Supervisor 90 

Attendants 91 

Head Attendant of 

Ward Ten 96 



PAGE. 

Lady Attendant 97 

Carpenter 99 

Patients 101 

Epileptics 108 

Pathology 109 

Surgery 110 

Eyes Ill 

Ears 114 

Throat 115 

Nose 116 

Hair 117 

Muscles 118 

Bowels 119 

Syphilis 122 

Food 124 

Medicines 129 

Hypodermics 132 

Trional 137 

Feeding 140 

Parole 143 

Walking 151 

Work 154 

Noise 159 

Sleep 161 

Beds 166 

Baths 168 

Church 172 

Amusements 175 

Reading Matter 179 

Tobacco 181 

Abuses 185 

Visits to a Canadian 

Asylum 193 

Friends of Patients .. . 198 

The Need 205 

Dr. Sahler's Sanitarium 208 



MAY 1 1907 

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